MEXICO CITY — Cardinal Juan Sandoval Íñiguez, successor to the murdered archbishop of Guadalajara, revealed that he was poisoned two years ago and almost died.

Talk of the poisoning had circulated in the past, to explain Cardinal Sandoval's inexplicable illness which kept him hospitalized for two months. But it wasn't until June 5, at a news conference, that he confirmed the poisoning.

The cardinal attributed the attempt on his life to his statements against the conclusions of the investigations by Mexican authorities into the May 1993 murder of Cardinal Juan Jesús Posadas Ocampo at the Guadalajara international airport.

Moreover, Cardinal Sandoval said that five witnesses, who testified in the case, received death threats and “offers of money.”

In late May, Cardinal Sandoval gave the Department of Justice of the state of Jalisco new evidence on his predecessor's murder.

“It is clear,” he told reporters, that the murder was a “state crime” orchestrated by “elements of the government.” He noted that many security officers were present at the Guadalajara airport when Cardinal Posadas was shot.

Cardinal Sandoval said that the government of new President Vicente Fox “has all the necessary elements” to shed light on the murder.

The archbishop of Guadalajara refused to confirm or deny a report in the Italian newspaper Il Giornale, in which journalist Andrea Tornielli pointed out that Cardinal Sandoval had information that implicated former President Carlos Salinas de Gortari and his brother, Raúl, in drug trafficking.

During last month's consistory in Rome, Cardinal Sandoval gave the Pope and his collaborators information on the 1993 murder. “I handed it over,” the Mexican prelate said, “and they will certainly not use it in any way to make it known to the public, but only for the files on the case, as it involved a cardinal.”

Meanwhile, Adolfo Aguilar Zínser, President Fox's security adviser, said, “Our obligation and that of the Office of the General Procurator of the Republic will be to investigate to the ultimate consequences,” if there is evidence that the cardinal's case was a “state crime.”

Meanwhile, the Vatican said May 7 that it welcomes a new investigation by Mexican authorities into the assassination eight years ago of the Cardinal Sandoval's predecessor as cardinal archbishop of Guadalajara.

The Vatican expects “complete and authoritative clarity.”

“From the start the Holy See has expressed interest in knowing the entire truth about the dramatic killing of Cardinal Juan Jesus Posadas Ocampo,” Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said. He said the Vatican was aware of “the coinciding interest of Mexican authorities in arriving at the truth.”

“The Holy See awaits a complete and authoritative clarity on the assassination of Cardinal Posadas Ocampo from the competent judiciary authorities,” the spokesman said.

Posadas Ocampo, who had accused the long-entrenched Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) of ties to narcotics traffickers, was gunned down in the parking lot of the Guadalajara Airport in 1993.

Authorities alleged the cardinal was killed by narcotrafficker Joaquin Loera Guznam, who mis-took him for a member of a rival band led by Arellano Felix.

A Milan newspaper said Tuesday that an unidentified cardinal attending last month's Consistory at the Vatican turned over to Vatican authorities nine compact disks containing new evidence linking the assassination to former Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari and his brother Raul.

The election of President Vicente Fox Quesada, leader of the National Action Party, in July 2000 apparently cleared the way for a new probe into the killing by ending the church-state hostility of seven decades of PRI rule.

Maria de la Luz Lima Malvido, No. 2 in the Attorney General's Office, said in Mexico City Wednesday the government would ask the Vatican through diplomatic channels to turn over any evidence that the assassination was a “crime of the state.” She said she expected a response in about a month.

(Compiled from Zenit and RNS reports)