The Mexican government’s human rights body has accused police of killing 22 people in extrajudicial executions in a raid on a drug cartel previous year.
Advertisement
“The investigation confirmed facts that show grave human rights violations attributable to public servants of the federal police, ” commission President Luis Raul Gonzalez Perez said during a press conference Thursday.
The government has said the dead were suspected members of the Jalisco New Generation cartel who were hiding out on the ranch in Tanhuato and accused them of starting the confrontation by firing at police first.
In May past year, federal police ambushed suspected members of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel holed up at Rancho El Sol near the small town of Tanhuato in the violent western state of Michoacan and killed 42 men.
The commission said police did not provide evidence supporting that account, adding that witness testimony indicates at least 41 federal police officers sneaked onto the ranch early in the morning.
The raid was backed by a Black Hawk helicopter which reportedly shot around 4,000 rounds that reportedly killed five people.
Gonzalez said police lied about their role during the incident at the ranch, where they moved seven bodies and shifted weapons to manipulate the crime scene.
mexicoMexico’s national security commissioner, Renato Sales, who oversees the federal police, rejected the CNDH allegations. According to the commission, the use of excessive force by federal police officers led to the “arbitrary execution” of 22 people, and the deaths of four others.
“The use of weapons was necessary and proportional against the real and imminent and unlawful aggression”, Sales said. “They acted in legitimate defense”. Mexico’s security forces – the federal police, the army and the navy, and others – have always been implicated in rights abuses during their decade-long battle with drug cartels that has claimed more than 100,000 lives.
Federal police say they came under fire from the alleged drug traffickers, which precipitated the shootout that began at 8:00 or 8:30 a.m.
Eighteen of the victims were found barefoot and one just in his underpants, leading the commission to conclude most were asleep when police arrived.
The government refused to release the post-mortem reports for the victims.
“It’s systematic and hopefully this will put a brake on the excesses and abuses by the federal police”, said a senior Mexican law enforcement official who declined to be named.
Advertisement
The same year, soldiers killed 22 suspected gang members.
