MEXICO CITY (AP) -- The attorney for two of the Mexican federal police officers detained in the shooting of a U.S. embassy vehicle that wounded two U.S. government employees says his clients have formally declared that the incident was not an ambush but an accident occurring during the pursuit of suspected criminals.

Officials from both nations have said federal officers were chasing criminals Friday on a highway south of Mexico City when bullets were fired at the embassy sport utility vehicle carrying the two employees and a Mexican Navy captain. The U.S. embassy characterized the incident as an "ambush."

But attorney Ricardo Monterroso Cisneros told The Associated Press on Sunday that "there was no ambush." Monterroso is attorney for Rafael Rivera Cordoba and Jorge Alberto Vargas Camacho, among a dozen federal police officers detained.