Drug Lord in Prison Standoff Gives Up

MEXICO CITY —  A jailed drug baron surrendered to authorities Thursday, giving up control of a state prison two weeks after a shootout that killed 18 people and showed the power and privileges he enjoyed behind bars.

Oliverio Chavez Araujo and one of his lieutenants left the Matamoros prison near the U.S.-Mexican border under heavy guard about 5 a.m. and were flown to Mexico City aboard a jet from the federal attorney general’s office.

The governor of the northern state of Tamaulipas, Americo Villareal, later fired the prison warden and announced the resignation of the director of the state prison system, according to his spokesman, Pedro Alfonso Garcia.

The attorney general’s office said it has been investigating the warden and the assistant warden as well as several top police officials and a federal prosecutor in Matamoros, which is across the border from Brownsville, Tex.

Chavez, who earlier had been shot in the face by a would-be assassin in the prison, was taken to Durango Hospital in the capital, the attorney general’s office said.

He agreed to leave the prison after five hours of negotiations with Assistant Atty. Gen. Federico Ponce Rojas. Ponce said Chavez cannot talk because of his wounds and negotiated through two of his assistants.

The prison standoff had embarrassed the Mexican government by turning attention to what authorities had long known--that Chavez was running his drug empire from his cell and was in virtual control of the prison.

On Tuesday, Chavez held a behind-bars fiesta featuring live music, clowns, barbecued goat and beer.

The party increased the outcry over official corruption; enraged opposition lawmakers demanded a congressional investigation into activities of the governor of Tamaulipas state.

The prison standoff began May 17 when a member of a rival drug gang tried to kill Chavez.

The assassination attempt provoked a three-hour gun and knife battle that left 18 inmates dead, eight wounded and the Chavez gang in control of the crowded prison.

Chavez, 33, brought in doctors who reportedly performed surgery in the lavish cell from which he is said to have run his $100-million-a-year cocaine business.