Ex-Guatemalan policeman held in slayings

The fifth of six former Guatemalan police officers suspected in the killings of three Salvadoran politicians and their driver turned himself on Wednesday. Prosecutors said the ex-officer allegedly bought the gasoline used to burn the victims.

Marvin Roberto Contreras Natareno may be one of the last living links to the Feb. 19 killings. Four suspects previously arrested in the case were killed by gunmen Sunday while in prison.

"Investigations place Marvin Roberto Contreras Natareno at the scene of the killings of the four people, and we can present telephone records that place him at the gasoline station" to buy the gasoline, said prosecutor Candido Bremmer.

Contreras Natareno turned himself in at police headquarters, and his lawyer asked that he be held somewhere where his life would not be in danger.

"Of course he fears for his life," said national police director Erwin Sperissen. "He is a witness, and he acknowledges his participation in the events up to a certain point."

Contreras Natareno was an investigator at the police organized crime unit, where the sixth suspect _ who is still at large _ also worked.

The politicians killed on Feb. 19 were three Central American Parliament members, including Eduardo D'Aubuisson, son of El Salvador's late right-wing leader Roberto D'Aubuisson, and their driver.

The suspects were accused of killing the Salvadorans, setting fire to their bodies and leaving their charred remains along a road outside Guatemala City. Officials say some of the politicians were still alive when they were set on fire.

El Salvador's President Tony Saca said "high-level" people in Guatemala had been in involved in the crimes, and called on Guatemala to demonstrate that it was confronting the problem.

"Guatemala has to show it is changing, and it has to go as far as necessary," Saca said during an interview in Washington, where he is visiting.

"There are authorities involved, there are high-level people, and we should investigate who were the masterminds of the killings of the policemen and the legislators," he said. "There are authorities in Guatemala who should be brought to justice, and that's what we have been asking for."

On Sunday, gunmen stormed a Guatemalan prison and gunned down the four jailed police officers.

President Oscar Berger said "organized crime gangs" reached the officers' cell after getting past eight locked doors at the prison. Berger said it still was not clear whether drug trafficking or other organized crime was involved, but a major question is how the gunmen were able to get past eight doors to reach the suspects.

Investigators have said they are not ruling out any possible motive in the killing of the Salvadorans. But officials have suggested the rogue police may not have realized who their victims were, or that the mastermind of the crime may have tricked them into targeting the Salvadorans by telling them the victims were drug dealers.

Berger has said he was "not ruling out the possibility that it was a political crime." Other theories include that the killings were by the organized crime groups that plague the region.

The killing of Eduardo D'Aubuisson came on the eve of the 15th anniversary of his father's death.