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	Mexico investigates former aide to top cop (AP)
	MEXICO CITY – Mexican prosecutors said Thursday they are investigating a former close aide to the country's top police official as part of a probe into alleged information leaks to drug cartels. Mario Velarde has been named in the investigation known as Operation Clean House, a sweeping investigation aimed at weeding out corrupt officials, said an official at the federal Attorney General's Office who was not authorized to be quoted by name. Several high-ranking Mexican law enforcement officials already have been detained as a result of the investigation. Velarde served as Public Safety Secretary Genaro Garcia Luna's private secretary several years ago, and continued to work in the Public Safety Department in a different job until he was asked to retire this year, according to a spokesperson in Garcia Luna's office who is prohibited by department regulations from being quoted by name. Velarde has not been charged with a crime, nor has he been detained, prosecutors said. There was no telephone number listed under Velarde's name in Mexico City and it was not known if he had an attorney. Mexican law enforcement agencies have been rocked in recent weeks by the detention or house arrest of about a dozen high-level police and prosecution officials on suspicion they leaked information to Mexico's powerful Sinaloa drug cartel. Those detained in the probe include a Mexican police official who led Mexico's national Interpol office. In another drug-related case, a lawyer for former federal police regional commander Javier Herrera said Thursday that Herrera's detention on suspicion of aiding drug traffickers was a reprisal for his complaints about alleged mismanagement on the force. Herrera was detained Monday for questioning on allegations that he supposedly received money from drug traffickers, but his lawyer, Raquenel Villanueva, said he is innocent and is being punished for publicly alleging earlier this year that Garcia Luna had appointed unqualified police officers. Villanueva read a letter in which Herrera said he had learned of a plot to kill him by "the closest circle of Garcia Luna's associates." Garcia Luna's office said it would not respond to such an allegation. In the Pacific Coast city of Culiacan, prosecutors reported that five police officers were killed in an ambush outside a busy supermarket. No arrests have been made. ___ Associated Press Writer E. Eduardo Castillo contributed to this story. Taken from here