Alma Gonzalez, one of the wives of the murdered prison workers, cries during her husband's funeral in Matamouros, northern Mexico.

Federal Attorney General Rafael Macedo de la Concha said organized crime figures were responsible for the killings and said that "war has been declared" in the struggle to quell drug vendettas in Mexican prisons.

Soldiers guarded entrances to the Matamoros facility, across the border from Brownsville, Texas, after the six men were found dead near the prison grounds. The killers apparently lay in wait for the men to exit the prison after they finished their work shifts.

Macedo de la Concha said "criminals, many of them in prison and others on the streets" were responsible, and that accused drug lord Osiel Cardenas -- who has allegedly been plotting to escape the maximum security La Palma prison -- may have been involved in the killing.

The Japan Times Weekly: Jan. 29, 2005
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