DNA sought to prove snatched body was that of Zeta leader

Just two weeks after the body of one of Mexico's most notorious drug leaders - the head of the powerful Zetas cartel - was stolen from a mortuary under mysterious circumstances, forensic experts in Mexico unearthed the remains of his father in a family grave to see if they can match the DNA with the samples they took from the missing cadaver.

Heriberto Lazcano Lazcano, 38, was gunned down on October 6 after a shootout with marines in Progreso, a town in the northern Mexican state of Coahuila. Known as "El Lazca," Lazcano was one of the most brutal drug lords in Mexico, and who was reportedly responsible for ordering some of the most gruesome deaths - beheadings, tortures and castrations - in the country. He was also the second-most-wanted fugitive in Mexico.

An autopsy showed that El Lazca had been shot several times in the back at about a distance of 300 meters when he tried to flee authorities after they had stopped his vehicle. Law enforcement officials released a photograph of the dead man lying on a gurney.

Some hours later, a group of armed men stormed the mortuary and took El Lazca's body; the whereabouts of the cadaver are still unknown.

Father's remains

On Monday, the Mexico Attorney General's Office ordered the exhumation of El Lazca's father, Gregorio Lazcano, from a family plot in Pachuca, Hidalgo state. The process of taking the samples of the father's genetic material took about seven hours, according to one forensic official.

The government of President Felipe Calderón had described El Lazca's demise as a major victory in the ongoing drug war for his National Action Party (PAN) administration, which is to leave office on December 1. But many are still skeptical.

Results of a public opinion poll released on Tuesday showed that one out of four Mexicans believe that it was El Lazca who was gunned down by marines. The survey conducted by Parametria also showed that only one in 10 believe that drug-related violence, which has claimed more than 50,000 lives since 2006, will actually diminish with El Lazca's death.

But William Brownfield, the US State Department's top drug policy official, told The Guardian on Monday that Washington was sure that the dead man was El Lazca. "The Zetas are on the run," Brownfield said.