My father, Raul Salinas Lozano, was the first Mexican economist graduated from the University of Harvard, in 1945. He was Secretario de Industria y Comercio under the administration of President López Mateos, and had an upright relationship with President Kennedy. My father was responsible of bringing the first automobile building plants of Ford Motor Company, General Motors Company and Chrysler CO into Mexico, which have successfully developed during the last 50 years.

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During the Mexican Administration of President Miguel de la Madrid, my father was senator in the Congress. He strongly participated to develop trade between Mexico and USA by engaging Mexico to sign the protocol of the GAAT, as prologue of the NAFTA.

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My brother Carlos, also a PHD Harvard man, as President of Mexico, built the NAFTA in good terms with both USA Presidents, George Bush Sr. and William Clinton. During President Salinas's administration, I was responsible for developing a personal relationship with the Bush family. Our relationship developed to the point that I, and a group of Mexican businessmen, were guests of President Bush Sr. at the White House. Moreover, I had the honor of having the Bush family as my personal guests, both at my home in Mexico City and at my Ranch called "Mendocinas" in Puebla, always accompanied with the US Secret Service who trusted me at that time (1989-1994).

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Before 1995, when the propaganda against me and my family started in Mexico, I was a respected public figure and lived a socially respectable life. I am a Civil Engineer (UNAM) with post graduate studies in France, at the Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussees and the University of Paris (IEDES).

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In the private sector, I have worked in the most important industrial and engineering groups in Mexico, Grupo ICA and Grupo IUSA.

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I developed my own construction company MAPARO, S.A. de C.V. and was main shareholder of Mexicana de Autobuses, Grupo MASA (which at the end we sold to the VOLVO group). In the public sector, I worked for the Secretaría de Obras Públicas, Comisión Federal de Electricidad, Secretaría de Asentamientos Humanos de Obras Públicas, and DICONSA.

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In sports, I was member of the Mexican Equestrian Team, participating in international jumping horse shows such as, Washington, Harrisburg, New York, Toronto, Nice, Rome, Luzerne, Wiesbaden, and Aachen. Moreover, I also represented my country by participating in the 1971 Pan-American Games in Cali, Colombia.

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In my cultural life, I was founder and permanent board member of the Academia de Música del Palacio de Minería (Orquesta de Minería).

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As a writer, I have written more than a dozen books, also, I was guest to the Mexican-American Studies Center of UCLA at La Joya, California.

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Right after the end of my brother's Presidential Administration in December 1994, a brutal and unexpected devaluation of the Mexican currency (Peso) in reference to the US dollar begun. This caused the new government to blame the former one for the crisis. During the next two months, January and February (1995), this economic problem developed into a political crisis for the new ruling administration.

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The new ruling administration, at the time, searching for credibility, and wishing to move the social attention from the economic crisis, started a propaganda coup against my brother: "Former President's

brother responsible for the assassination of José Francisco Ruiz Massieu, (chairman of the Mexican Congress)". They created evidence against me, by paying US$500,000.00 (Five hundred thousand US dollars), to the confessed criminal, in order to change his original fifteen depositions, and now, pointing me as the intellectual responsible of the criminal act.

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This was the first of six legal proceedings that the government built up against me during the 1994- 2000 administration and that kept me 10 years in prison while being innocent. A summary of the result of these cases and investigations against me, were presented in the documents I gave to the consular official who kindly attended me last Thursday. Below is a recap of them:

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1) Homicide of José Francisco Ruiz Massieu. Started: February 24, 1995. Ended: June 9, 2005. Result: INNOCENT.

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2) Illegal Enrichment (1 of 2). Started: March 18, 1996. Ended: July 19, 2013. Result: INNOCENT.

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3) Tax evasion. Started: September 19, 1996. Ended: February 11, 1997. Result: INNOCENT.

 

4) Money laundering. Started: July 11, 1997. Ended: May 19, 1998. Result: INNOCENT.

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5) Illegal Enrichment (2 of 2). Started: September 3, 1998. Ended: January 28, 1999. Result:

INNOCENT.

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6) Embezzlement. Started: August 6, 2002. Ended: June 26, 2006. Result: INNOCENT.

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I also gave her a copy of the official document issued by Comisión Nacional de Seguridad, Secretaría de Gobernación, dated on December 22, 2015, which confirms that in all the official files there is no record of any final condemnatory sentence against me. In other words, after almost 20 years of investigation, the Mexican Government has recognized my full innocence.

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Simultaneously, during the years of the legal proceedings, the government promoted an intensive media campaign to destroy and damage my image. My family collected between 1995 and 2000, more than 45,000 press reports that criticized and attacked all of us. Copy of those media reports are available in case you need to verify my say. This campaign achieved two goals: a) Rip into the public space and shake the collective mind to believe that I was a murderer, a thief, and a despicable and corrupt person. b) Fill the internet with a mass of information impossible to fight by an individual.

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I'm aware that the major international scandal regarding my case was about a millionaire fund I made in Switzerland with other Mexican business men. I declare, as I have always done, that the origin of that money is legal.

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Mexican and Swiss governments developed a10-year investigation against me, concerning Drug Traffic and Money Laundering. The Swiss authorities tried to induce several witnesses (which were in jail) to declare that I have had relation with drug trafficking. At the end of the investigation, the Swiss and the Mexican authorities casted aside those witnesses for perjury, because they confirmed that they were willing to declare any lie in exchange for benefits in their prison sentences. Both investigations, Drug Traffic and Money Laundering, ended in 2008 with the conclusion that there was no evidence involving Raul Salinas de Gortari in any of those crimes.

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Another big lie commonly found at the web is that I have received back those funds from Switzerland and that I am a millionaire. This is absolutely false, I haven't received back any money from that fund and I am not the millionaire the gossips say I am. My defense strategy was based, in one hand, on working every day alone and with my family and lawyers, in order to fight back each and every one of the legal procedures and allow the Mexican judiciary system to study the truth of my information and defense. In the other hand, I perform every day as the good and honest citizen that I am. Today, I am deeply involved in several actions to improve the respect of the law in all levels of Mexican society. I give interviews inviting people to remember that respecting the law is the most important value of any society. I have written books with the intent of pushing the understanding that there will not be economical growth in Mexico as far as we do not build a society where every citizen is personally engaged in the respect of law.

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