| | |  News Around the Republic of Mexico | December 2008 
US Anti-Kidnap Expert Followed Abductors Willingly
 Mark Stevenson - Associated Press
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Mexico City — U.S. anti-kidnapping expert Felix Batista went willingly with his abductors and no ransom demand has been made in the week since he disappeared, a Mexican prosecutor said Wednesday.
Coahuila state Attorney General Jesus Torres said Batista apparently bade farewell to some acquaintances he was dining with, and asked them to call his associates in case anything happened to him, before leaving a restaurant in the northern state of Coahuila on Dec. 10.
He has not been heard from since.
Investigators believe Batista was headed for some sort of risky meeting.
"He came up (to the table) and handed over some of his personal possessions and said, 'They're going to bring me a message,'" Torres said. "He handed out some cards and said, 'If anything happens to me, call these numbers.'"
Torres said there was no indication that Batista, who was in the city of Saltillo to give conferences to businesspeople on how to avoid kidnapping, was representing any current abduction victim.
But one of Batista's local acquaintances – Saltillo security-company owner Jose Pilar Valdez – had been kidnapped the day before and was released just hours after Batista was snatched, said Jose Martinez, the operations chief for Pilar Valdez's firm.
Batista's dining companions told Mexican kidnap negotiator Max Morales that he apparently received a call from Pilar Valdez asking to meet outside the restaurant.
That was when Batista excused himself from the table, went outside and was taken away by men in an unmarked vehicle. Pilar Valdez was released a few hours later, so badly beaten he has been unable to speak to news media about the case, Martinez said.
"He is injured ... badly beaten," said Martinez. "He hasn't wanted to talk about this, more because of his injuries than anything else, he was so badly beaten."
Batista is a professional kidnapping negotiator who works as a consultant for security company ASI Global LLC of Houston, which says he has helped resolve nearly 100 ransom cases. But fellow negotiators said it was highly unusual for Batista to have taken on such risky meeting himself.
"No negotiator would ever go out personally to receive a message, especially in a city he didn't know," Morales said. "He would have hired a taxi driver to do it."
Torres said there is no sign that the abductors forced Batista to accompany them. "There is clear evidence that he got into the vehicle willingly."
Nor has any ransom demand been made to Batista's family or business associates, apparently. "There has been total silence" from the abductors, Torres said, adding that Batista is considered a missing person.
Morales, who has worked on hundreds of kidnap cases in Mexico over the last 20 years, speculated that drug traffickers may have targeted him for kidnapping after some local media reports incorrectly identified him as a former FBI agent. Batista was a former U.S. Army major.
Or kidnappers may have thought Batista might have valuable information on local businesspeople who might make good kidnap targets, Morales added. |
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