The defense of Raúl Salinas de Gortarí posted a 32 million-peso bond guarantee (US2.9 million) to a federal judge on Monday, paving the way for the imminent release of the ex-president's brother from prison. Raúl Salinas, the brother of former President Carlos Salinas de Gortari, had only to await the formal notification of the bond to authorities at the Santiaguito prison in the State of Mexico, before walking again as a free man after 10 years of incarceration.
Appearing with Raul's wife after the bond posting, Salinas' son, Juan José Salinas Pasalagua, told reporters he hoped his father would be freed sometime late Monday night. At the time The Herald went to press, Salinas was still behind bars.
Last week, a three-judge appeals court threw out a 27-year murder sentence against Salinas.
The flamboyant playboy was accused of the September 1994 slaying of his former brother-inlaw, José Francisco Ruiz Massieu, a former governor and senior official in the then-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI.
The only other charge Salinas still faces is illegal enrichment, which was based on the discovery of more than US100 million in Swiss bank accounts in his control.
Those assets have been frozen by authorities, and recent days have seen a high-profile effort by the Salinas family to raise bail money from friends and sympathizers. Salinas' wife, Paulina Castañón, said that numerous friends had offered to contribute to the bail fund, among them flautist Horacio Franco.
