Sunday Times : Mortified of Mexico make up with U2

Source : Sunday Times

From The Sunday Times :

Mortified of Mexico make up with U2John Burns

BEHIND the heavily guarded walls of Los Pinos presidential palace in the heart of Mexico City,Ernesto Zedillo, the Mexican president, stood meekly before U2, the Irish rock band, last Thursdayand apologised profusely for the behaviour of his sons.

The scene followed a scuffle earlier in the week between the band’s security men and secret service agents guarding the president’s three sons, who had attended a U2 concert in the Mexican capitalon Tuesday. Zedillo’s sons ran into trouble when U2 bodyguards attempted to prevent them fromgaining access to a restricted area backstage. As Emiliano Zedillo tried to enter a "danger zone"containing a two-ton camera boom, two camera operators blocked his path. An agent guarding thepresident’s son is said to have hurled the cameramen to the ground and started kicking them.

When Jerry Mletzer, an American bodyguard for the rock band’s bassist Adam Clayton, intervened, the Mexican security agent pulled out a gun and pistol-whipped him. Mletzer was knockedunconscious and taken to hospital with head injuries that required several stitches. After Mletzer was flown back to America, Paul McGuinness, U2’s manager, met Mexico City’s district attorney, whoassured him the incident would be investigated. The American embassy said it would also investigate as the bodyguard is a US citizen.

Despite a statement from the Mexican president’s office disputing the sequence of events leading up to the attack, the fact that the president met the band to apologise was a clear signal of theembarrassment it has caused.

An insider described the meeting with the Irish rock stars as "a fiasco", adding : "The band is still furious."