Security elements among 7 dead in plane crash in Zacatecas

By Chris Covert
Rantburg.com

Foto de Wikipedia

Seven individuals including four Mexican federal police agents were killed in an aircraft crash midday Tuesday in Zacatecas state, according to Mexican news accounts.

A news report which appeared in the onlone edition of El Siglo de Durango news daily said that the aircraft was taking off from Zacetacas airport in Zacatecas when the pilot radioed he was returning to the airport.  The aircraft was bound for Mexico City. 

The aircraft crashed in Morelos municipality just ten minutes after takeoff near an area called Noria de Gringos.  The aircraft crashed just a few kilometers from General Leobardo C. Ruiz International Airport in Calera municipality.

The agents were due to return to Mexico City Monday night at around 2255 hrs, but the aircraft was forced to return to the airport because of an unspecified mechanical problem.  The aircraft took off at 1200 hrs on Tuesday, but then crashed.

Among the dead were Antonio Andres Alvarez Mota, a ministerial agent with the Ministerio Publico de la Federacion  and affiliated with the Subprocuraduria Especializada en Investigacion en contra de la Delincuencia Organizada (SEIDO) or organized crime bureau of the Procuraduria General de la Republic (PGR), the Mexican national attorney general's office.

Also reported dead were two Policia Federal (PF) ministerial agents  Ricardo Martín Flores Benitez and Francisco Leonardo Niño Acevedo.  Another PF ministerial agent assigned to Zacatecas, Martín Antonio Gutierrez Cantu, also died in the crash.

Also dead were the pilot, Guillermo Flores Millan, the copilot Juan Manuel Garcia Bernal and a mechanic, Miguel Angel Guerrero Coliev.

The aircraft was a 1985 Kingair 300 twin engine turboprop, which belonged to the PGR.

According to the El Siglo de Durango report, the ministerial agents were in Zacatecas state to serve an arrest warrant for three alleged Los Zetas operatives identified as Juan Luis Gallegos Muro, Fernando Rodríguez Robles Zaldivar and Anacleto Flores.  The three alleged drug cartel members were sent to Centro de Reinsercion Social (CERESO) in Cieneguillas.

Chris Covert writes Mexican Drug War and national political new for Rantburg.com and BorderlandBeat.com

Read More

Self-Defense Groups Claim That They Disarmed the Knights Templar Cartel In Michoacán

By: Rubén Mosso

The relatives of the 34 people who were detained by the Mexican army for allegedly being linked to organized crime by acting as community guards for the community Felipe Carrillo Puerto (La Ruana), in Michoacán, requested for the intervention of President Enrique Peña Nieto to release the detainees, because they say that they are innocent. 

Farmers who demonstrated outside the Assistant Attorney General's Office for Special Investigations on Organized Crime (SIEDO) reported that the firearms that their relatives had were seized from the Knights Templar Cartel, who live within the community and have also committed a series of abuses against the community.

 The wives, mothers, sisters, and other relatives warned that in case they don’t receive support from the president, they will take matters into their own hands by arming themselves in order to defend their community from various criminal groups operating in the area of Michoacán.

“Release the guys that you brought, they’re innocent, they are people like us, lemon harvesters, who left their family, wives to their children.   They seized the weapons in order to defend us from the Knights Templar Cartel, simply because it was too much what they were doing,” said one woman.

--What were they doing?

--“They increased the price of tortillas and meat.  They were charging us for each box of lemons that we packed, they would take a portion.  We would work three days a week, with those three days, do you think that we were going to be able to support our children and apart from that they would take away our money.”

The complaint mentioned that the owners of the trucks that would transport the lemons had to pay “Los Templarios” 200 pesos per car, a situation for those who would harvest lemons, their payments would go down, plus they also had to pay to work.

--Who gave the weapons to the guys?

--“They took them from “Los Caballeros”.  In La Ruana, we caught “Caballeros”, when we started to rise up in arms we were all saying: there lives a guy; he’s a “Caballero”.  We would all go and take their weapons away.”

They commented that the municipal and state police in those zones are “leaders” of the Knight Templar Cartel, so they decided to go and also take their weapons, bullet-proof vests, and trucks away.

--“The weapons that the guys had belong to the Knights Templar Cartel.”

The complainants say that their families do not have a lawyer, or even a public defender.  They were informed that they would be transferred to jails in Matamoros, Veracruz, and the state of Mexico.

Last week at a press conference, both officials from the Secretariat of Governance (SEGOB) and the PGR said that the detainees were armed by the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (Cártel de Jalisco Nueva Generación), a group linked to the drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.

Family members have not determined whether they will be staying at the outskirts of the SIEDO, but they do ensure that they will insist federal agencies for the release of those detained, as they called it an outrage.

Source:  Milenio - Rubén Mosso

Read More

Proposal advances in Mexico to limit preventative detentions to 8 days

By Chris Covert
Rantburg.com

A new law is advancing in the Mexican national legislature which could limit preventative detentions to eight days, according to Mexican news accounts.

A news report which appeared on the website of El Sol de Mexico news daily last Saturday said that Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) deputy coordinator of the senate, Arturo Zamora Jimenez, Mexican senators are discussing limiting the prosecutorial maneuver of arriago, or preventative detentions to just eight days.

Arturo Zamora Jimenez

Current law permits Mexico's Procuraduria General de la Republica (PGR) or national attorney general to detain suspected criminals for up to 40 days without charge or trial.  The maneuver is colloquially known in Mexico as "rooting", and is typically used against suspected drug traffickers and corrupt government officials.

Arraigo can only be imposed with the consent of a Mexican federal judge and can be extended under certain conditions for up to 80 days.

According to a news report which appeared on the website of Animal Politico news website Saturday, Zamora Jimenez said that the law violates Article 17 of the Mexican Constitution which limits detentions by the PGR to just 48 hours.  The procedure, according to the senator violates criminal defendants right to a speedy trial.

Mexico has a Napoleonic law which means that criminal defendants who are detained begin serving time for their crime immediately, but may be released if they can prove their innocence.

According to the article, Zamora Jimenez wants to limit use of arraigo to only drug traffickers and organized crime defendants.

During the term of President Felipe Calderon, drug traffickers could and were routinely  be held incommunicado on military bases until the investigation of the prosecutor was complete.  Arraigo has been used against government officials as well. In the case of the massacres in La Laguna during 2010, prison officials in Durango's Centro de Readaptacion Social Numero 2 prison in Gomez Palacio, Durango, were detained for 20 days after it was learned that they had spent months permitting prisoners passes at night in order to attack Los Zetas facilities in La Laguna.  Those series of massacres cost the lives of more than 30 individuals in 2010.

Prison director Margarita Rojas Rodriguez was ordered detained for 20 days, and then was sentenced three months later to serve time in a prison in Nayarit.  Ten other officials were eventually sentenced for their tole in the massacres as well.

Another example of the use of arraigo is Jose Antonio Acosta Hernandez, AKA Diego, one of the bloodiest capos in Mexican Drug War history, who was ordered detained for 40 days for his role in more than 1,500 murders during his reign of terror between 2007 and 2011 in Chihuahua state.

Arraigo is part of the Mexican Article 139 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the State, and not part of the Mexican Constitution.  Part of the law, according to an article entitled El Arraigo es Opesto al Principio de Presuncion de Inocencia, or Rooting is opposed to the principle of presumption of Innocense, found on the website of www.poderjudicial-gto.gob.mx/  by Laura Patricia Ramirez Molina, only freedom of movement of the detainee may be constricted.  The government is not allowed to seize property, but is only allowed to detain the suspects for the time period to enable prosecutors to complete their investigation.  In practice, prosecutors also limit detainees contact with the outside during the term of their detention.

In the article Ramirez Molina proposed the use of electronic means of tracking criminal suspects detained under arraigo.

The article can be found here (PDF download).

According to the article, Ramirez Molina said that arraigo violates Articles 14, 16 and 19 of the Mexican Constitution.  It should be noted that Mexican criminal procedure in practice doesn't allow the presumption of innocence in that criminal defendants must prove their innocence.

Chris Covert writes Mexican Drug War and national political news for Rantburg.com

Read More

Lazcas Parents Exhumed

Borderland Beat

 

 

 

MEXICO CITY  - The Attorney General's Office (PGR) initiated proceedings to exhume the bodies of the parents of Heriberto Lazcano Lazcano, El Lazca, founder of the Los Zetas cartel, to take genetic samples and compare them officially killed earlier this month.

At a news conference, Jose Cuitláhuac Salinas, head of the Attorney Specialized Investigation of Organized Crime (SEIDO), said the agency found the location of where the remains of Lazcca’s parents are buried.

The official said the Lazca’s parents, died many years ago, but they  are still able to use the remains for DNA testing to make a comparison with the DNA extracted from the  corpse  The Lazca .

The holder of the SEIDO insisted that the tests applied so far confirm that the Lazca was killed.

Exhumation done on October 22-see below

Salinas Martinez explained that the PGR has not located siblings of  Heriberto Lazcano, so that the proceedings will focus on the bodies of their parents.

To this end, authorities are coordinating with the state of Hidalgo, where the parents are buried. .

The goal is explained as taking samples that allow genetic comparison with DNA evidence that was collected of Heriberto Lazcano and that both the PGR and the government of Coahuila are holding.

For now, the PGR has for comparitive the thumbprints and two fingers, taken from the right hand of capo, who was  killed Sunday  by members of the Navy in the community of Progreso, Coahuila.

 Source: Proceso

Read More