Generals suspected of links to mob crime

Two Mexican generals, including the former deputy defence minister who helped lead an escalation of the country’s war against drug gangs, are being investigated for ties to organised crime.

Mexican soldiers have detained Tomas Angeles Dauahare, the army’s second in command until 2008, and Roberto Dawe Gonzalez, who led an elite unit in the state of Colima, and turned them over for questioning to the organised crime unit, military and government officials said .

The charges, if proven, would mark the highest case of military corruption since president Felipe Calderon sent the army to fight the drug cartels in 2006.

Mr Calderon named Dauahare as deputy defence minister upon taking office and the general retired in March 2008, according to a military spokesman.

Mexico’s army crackdown on drug gangs has failed to curb spiraling violence that has killed about 55,000 people in the past five years and has eroded support for Mr Calderon’s conservative National Action Party ahead of a 1 July presidential vote.

A recent series of massacres, like the discovery of 49 headless bodies on a highway over the weekend, could sway voters. The military has been seen as less susceptible to cartel bribes and intimidation than police.