José Francisco Ruiz Massieu

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José Francisco Ruiz Massieu (22 July 1946 – 28 September 1994) was a Mexican political figure. He was governor of Guerrero between 1987 and 1993. He then served as the secretary-general of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) in 1994. His term ended with his assassination.

José Francisco Ruiz Massieu was the brother-in-law of Carlos Salinas de Gortari and was due to become the PRI majority leader in the Chamber of Deputies. All that changed on September 28, 1994 when he was murdered by a gunman in front of a party building one block from swank Paseo de la Reforma avenue in downtown Mexico City. Within two weeks PRI Congressman Manuel Muñoz Rocha was linked to the assassination. Two weeks later, the assistant attorney general investigating the case, Mario Ruiz Massieu, the brother of the assassinated politician, resigned. He asserted that he had proof that high officials in the PRI were blocking his investigation. On February 28, 1995, Raúl Salinas de Gortari, the brother of former President Carlos Salinas de Gortari, was arrested as the mastermind of the Ruiz Massieu assassination. Three days later Mario Ruiz Massieu was arrested in Newark, NJ, boarding a plane to Madrid while carrying USD $46,000 in unreported cash. The government charged him with impeding the investigation into his brother's murder. The government also found seventeen million dollars in U.S. bank accounts linked to Mario Ruiz Massieu. These facts suggested the involvement of drug traffickers in the Ruiz Massieu conspiracy. Shortly after the arrest of his brother and Mario Ruiz Massieu, former President Salinas went on a hunger strike in a house in a poor neighborhood rebuilt under his Solidarity anti-poverty program. Salinas protest against the assault on his "personal honor" ended after 36 hours, and symbolized the changed position of Mexico's traditional ruling party.