Fugitive Held in Tijuana Writer’s Death : Crime: The ex-security chief at Caliente Racetrack, captured in L.A., is back in Mexico to face charges in the slaying of the columnist known as El Gato.

A central suspect in the sensational slaying two years ago of Hector Felix Miranda, a prominent Tijuana journalist widely known as El Gato, or the Cat, was in the custody of Mexican authorities Wednesday after his arrest by Los Angeles authorities this week, officials said.

Antonio Vera Palestina, former chief of security at Tijuana’s Caliente Racetrack, was taken into custody Tuesday afternoon as he arrived near the Greyhound bus terminal in downtown Los Angeles, authorities said.

Los Angeles police and U.S. immigration officers arrested the longtime fugitive after receiving a tip from Baja California authorities, who have been investigating the journalist’s April, 1988, slaying. Vera went to the station to meet a friend, according to a statement by the Los Angeles Police Department, which set up surveillance at the site.

The 38-year-old Vera, a former police officer in Mexico City, was in the United States illegally and was consequently turned over to U.S. immigration authorities. On Tuesday evening, he was returned to the U.S.-Mexico border, where he was turned over to state police agents and jailed in Tijuana.

The arrest culminates two years of doubt and intrigue surrounding the slaying, which became a heated political issue in Baja California, testing the Mexican government’s stated commitment to a free press.

Felix was one of two dozen journalists killed in the six-year term of former Mexican President Miguel de la Madrid. Most of the slayings remain unsolved, according to Mexican journalism groups.

Felix, 47, was killed on April 20, 1988, as he drove to work down a rain-slicked street in Tijuana. A vehicle blocked his path, and an assassin pumped two rounds from a 12-gauge shotgun through the driver’s window of his car.

The assailants had observed his path to and from work and waited for him at the assassination spot, investigators said.

Felix’s killing sparked anti-government protests and large-scale mourning in Tijuana, his adopted city.

The perception that authorities were covering up Felix’s slaying was widely credited with contributing to the decisive electoral victory last year of opposition Gov. Ernesto Ruffo Appel, the first-ever opposition governor in modern Mexico.

“This is only a first step, but it is a very important one,” said J. Jesus Blancornelas, Felix’s longtime colleague and co-worker, after news of Vera’s arrest. “From here comes the most difficult part,” he added, referring to the upcoming court proceedings against Vera.

Although grateful for Vera’s arrest, Blancornelas said during a Wednesday night press conference that he believes the masterminds of the killing are still at large. He voiced the hope that Vera’s arrest will finally resolve the mystery surrounding his colleague’s death.

Blancornelas and Felix founded the muckraking weekly Zeta, in which Felix’s pointed barbs appeared in a must-read column called Un Poco de Algo (A Little of Something). Felix, using a telltale combination of puns, double meanings, crude words and other verbal stunts, regularly took shots at a wide range of public officials in Baja. His titillating, gossipy missives were savored by the powerful and powerless alike.

For the past two years, Blancornelas, probably the most prominent journalist in Tijuana, has repeatedly used his publication to demand a thorough investigation into his colleague’s killing. He has reprinted old columns by Felix and featured full-page, black-bordered advertisements asking three successive Baja California governors what they planned to do with the case.

The weekly Zeta, under Blancornelas’ direction, has pointed its finger directly at Jorge Hank Rhon, the president of the Caliente Racetrack, who employed Vera.

Vera was also the longtime personal bodyguard for Hank, who is the scion of a wealthy and influential Mexico City family. Hank, the race track owner, was an acquaintance of the slain journalist but toward the end of the journalist’s life, Hank emerged as a frequent target in Felix’s column.

Hank has repeatedly denied any involvement in the case. His father, Jorge Hank Gonzalez, former mayor of Mexico City and now Mexico’s minister of agriculture and water resources, a cabinet-level post, has also publicly denied that his son played any role in the slaying, or that any cover-up was perpetuated to protect his son.

On Wednesday, Baja California Gov. Ruffo held a press conference in the state capital of Mexicali to announce the arrest. During the campaign, Ruffo, standard-bearer of Mexico’s opposition National Action Party, had vowed to pursue the case and clear up the unsolved slaying, a promise that he repeated Wednesday.

“The investigation will be pursued to its ultimate consequences, no matter who is involved,” a statement from the governor’s office said Wednesday.

Vera, who authorities said was living in El Monte, east of Los Angeles, was arrested without incident. He had been sought since the killing, and sightings of Vera had been reported everywhere from San Diego to Mexico City.

Vera appeared before Baja California State Judge Miguel Angel Barud on Wednesday and, at a preliminary hearing, denied the charges against him. The judge has 72 hours to determine whether there is sufficient proof to retain Vera in custody, something that is considered a virtual certainty considering the wealth of evidence garnered during the two years since an arrest order was issued for Vera.

Vera could face up to 30 years in jail on the murder charge. The suspect, sporting a beard, was led into the courtroom in handcuffs, under tight security.

Victoriano Medina Moreno, a former security guard at the race track, was convicted last August of being the triggerman in the slaying. He is serving a 27-year prison sentence.

However, Blancornelas, the slain columnist’s longtime colleague, has argued in print that Vera was the actual triggerman and that Medina only drove the getaway vehicle. Blancornelas and other journalists have said that Medina, although sharing responsibility, was being offered up as a scapegoat for the entire murder scheme--an allegation denied by Baja authorities. Medina himself contended that he was tortured into making a confession.

Mexican authorities never presented an adequate explanation as to why they believe Vera and Medina killed Felix. Officials said one of his columns cost Medina his former job, but Felix’s former colleagues said neither Medina’s or Vera’s names ever appeared in any of Felix’s columns.