Fishermen found

[Brian]

Wow

[Texsox]

Amazing. They are very lucky.

[Texsox]

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Three Mexican fishermen who survived nine months adrift in a small boat in the Pacific Ocean will now be investigated for possible links to drug trafficking, the government said on Tuesday.

 

The three men, who said they left Mexico's Pacific coast fishing village of San Blas last November, were rescued two weeks ago more than 5,000 miles away near the Marshall Islands in the south Pacific.

 

Their dramatic story of survival on the high seas -- staying alive by eating raw birds and fish, and drinking rain water -- has captivated Mexico.

 

Few doubt the men, who are due back in Mexico on Friday, spent nine months lost at sea, but there are doubts over other parts of the story.

 

All three men were first seen as national heroes but in recent days questions have arisen over why they went to sea in the first place and over two other men who died on board.

 

"There will no doubt have to be an investigation. This case merits an investigation," Ruben Aguilar, the spokesman for President Vicente Fox, told reporters on Tuesday when asked about rumored drug connections.

 

"There are a series of questions and the corresponding authorities will have to investigate." he said.

 

Mexico's Pacific Coast is a drug trafficking highway and in the village of San Blas the streets are abuzz with rumors that when they began their voyage on a 25-foot (8-meter) boat, the men may not have been fishing for sharks as they claim.

 

But the men rejected suggestions that they were involved in drug trafficking.

 

"They are wrong because we went out to catch sharks," Jesus Vidana, one of the survivors, said in a television interview from the Marshall Islands, where they were finally returned to dry land on Tuesday.

 

The fishermen also flatly denied suggestions that they may have eaten the bodies of the two dead men to stay alive. Continued ...