1/16/2015
MEXICO CITY – Mexico’s national ombud said Thursday that investigators with the central state of Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office allegedly tortured witnesses to an alleged case of extrajudicial executions last year.
“Personnel with the (state AG’s office) are suspected of incurring in acts of torture, including against two women who were suspects and fortunately are now free; they had nothing to do with the people who were in that warehouse” in the municipality of Tlatlaya, the president of the National Human Rights Commission, or CNDH, Luis Raul Gonzalez, told MVS radio.
The actions that the officials said they carried out “did not correspond to what the CNDH later discovered,” he said.
“For example, the expert’s reports did not specifically mention what was later found, that .. the crime scene had been altered, that there had been arbitrary deaths,” Gonzalez said.
The ombud also said his office will keep a close eye on the state AG’s office’s internal probe to ensure “there is no impunity.”
That state prosecutor’s office said Wednesday it is probing about a score of its own officials, including investigators with the agency and forensics experts.
On Thursday, Mexico City daily El Universal published excerpts of a CNDH report containing the statement of three witnesses who said they were victims of torture, mistreatment and intimidation.
One woman said she was forced to sign a statement under threat of rape, according to the report, which also documents other inhumane treatment of the witnesses.
Separately, the Federal Institute for Access to Information and Data Protection, or IFAI, has ordered the federal Attorney General’s Office to turn over investigators’ reports on the deaths of the 22 people in Tlatlaya.
Mexico’s top prosecutor’s office had responded to a request for that information by saying it would remain confidential for 12 years, the IFAI said in a statement, adding that it overruled that decision because the case involves serious human rights violations and by law the information cannot be kept secret.
In justifying its ruling on the matter, the IFAI noted that the CNDH on Tuesday modified its case file on the Tlatlaya killings as an investigation into grave rights violations.
The institute said, however, that people’s names could be removed from the documents due to their confidential nature.
Mexico’s Defense Secretariat initially said that the 22 suspected members of a kidnapping gang, had died in the June 30, 2014, clash with army soldiers in Tlatlaya, Mexico state.
A female witness, however, called that version of events into question, saying only one of the civilians died in a shootout and that the others were detained, interrogated and executed after being lined up against a warehouse wall.
The federal AG’s office says 14 people died in the armed clash and that three soldiers killed the other eight after they had surrendered, while the CNDH puts the number executed at 15.
Seven soldiers accused of abuse of authority, homicide, illegal alteration of a crime scene and other crimes are being prosecuted in the case.
source
MEXICO CITY – Mexico’s national ombud said Thursday that investigators with the central state of Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office allegedly tortured witnesses to an alleged case of extrajudicial executions last year.“Personnel with the (state AG’s office) are suspected of incurring in acts of torture, including against two women who were suspects and fortunately are now free; they had nothing to do with the people who were in that warehouse” in the municipality of Tlatlaya, the president of the National Human Rights Commission, or CNDH, Luis Raul Gonzalez, told MVS radio.
The actions that the officials said they carried out “did not correspond to what the CNDH later discovered,” he said.
“For example, the expert’s reports did not specifically mention what was later found, that .. the crime scene had been altered, that there had been arbitrary deaths,” Gonzalez said.
The ombud also said his office will keep a close eye on the state AG’s office’s internal probe to ensure “there is no impunity.”
That state prosecutor’s office said Wednesday it is probing about a score of its own officials, including investigators with the agency and forensics experts.
On Thursday, Mexico City daily El Universal published excerpts of a CNDH report containing the statement of three witnesses who said they were victims of torture, mistreatment and intimidation.
One woman said she was forced to sign a statement under threat of rape, according to the report, which also documents other inhumane treatment of the witnesses.
Separately, the Federal Institute for Access to Information and Data Protection, or IFAI, has ordered the federal Attorney General’s Office to turn over investigators’ reports on the deaths of the 22 people in Tlatlaya.
Mexico’s top prosecutor’s office had responded to a request for that information by saying it would remain confidential for 12 years, the IFAI said in a statement, adding that it overruled that decision because the case involves serious human rights violations and by law the information cannot be kept secret.
In justifying its ruling on the matter, the IFAI noted that the CNDH on Tuesday modified its case file on the Tlatlaya killings as an investigation into grave rights violations.
The institute said, however, that people’s names could be removed from the documents due to their confidential nature.
Mexico’s Defense Secretariat initially said that the 22 suspected members of a kidnapping gang, had died in the June 30, 2014, clash with army soldiers in Tlatlaya, Mexico state.
A female witness, however, called that version of events into question, saying only one of the civilians died in a shootout and that the others were detained, interrogated and executed after being lined up against a warehouse wall.
The federal AG’s office says 14 people died in the armed clash and that three soldiers killed the other eight after they had surrendered, while the CNDH puts the number executed at 15.
Seven soldiers accused of abuse of authority, homicide, illegal alteration of a crime scene and other crimes are being prosecuted in the case.
source
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