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.
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The report states that among the 43 individuals killed during the drug-bust, including one police officer, 22 civilians died as a result of “arbitrary execution”, and an additional four were killed from “excessive use of force”.
Renato Sales, Mexico’s national security commissioner, however, denied that police carried out the executions and claimed it was an act of defence.
The commission’s president Luis Raul Gonzalez Perez said the investigation revealed a range of human rights abuses on the part of government forces in the western state of Michoacan.
Gonzalez said that officers moved weapons to manipulate the scene and relocated seven of the bodies.
The authorities had said there had been no human rights breaches.
Although the death toll in the attack exceeded the worldwide kill rate, it was not unusual for Mexico that has witnessed more than 100,000 killings as part of the drug war that began in 2006.
Sales said federal police ordered the suspects to drop their weapons and surrender, but were answered with gunfire.
Mexico’s Human Rights Commission said Thursday that of 42 suspects killed in a May 2015 raid, near the small town of Tanhuato, more than half were arbitrarily killed by police, with many shot in the back, NPR’s Carrie Kahn tells our Newscast unit.
“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.
In total, five people were killed by the helicopter, the commission found.
“The commission’s report said the government did not produce evidence supporting that account and it said. officers started their assault at least an hour earlier than they maintained in reporting on the incident”.
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Also in 2014, 22 suspected gang members were killed by army officers who were later accused of murder. The commission’s investigation said 40 civilians were killed by bullets, one died in the fire and one was run over.
