The government’s transparency watchdog earlier said there was no evidence to indicate human rights violations.
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Mexican police massacred 22 civilians in arbitrary executions during a raid on a drug gang a year ago, a human rights ombudsman said Thursday.
In May past year, federal police ambushed suspected members of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (JNG) holed up at Rancho El Sol near the small town of Tanhuato in the violent western state of Michoacan and killed 42 men.
A total of 43 people, including a police officer, died at the ranch and 22 of those deaths were the result of “arbitrary execution”, the chairman said as he presented the conclusions of the commission’s investigation.
It cited extrajudicial executions, official obstruction of investigations as well as a lack of justice, and said the International Criminal Court should step in if Mexico fails to resolve the cases.
Two witnesses interviewed by the commission said federal police officers told one heavily tattooed man to run outside the ranch house and then the witnesses heard gunshots. He said the investigation was continuing, and urged Congress to pass laws on when security forces can fire their weapons.
Top state security official Renato Sales said the shooting erupted when the suspects refused to drop their weapons. “They acted in legitimate defence”. Fifty-four more federal police officers arrived along with a helicopter.
The government’s human rights agency is accusing federal police of executing at least 22 people during a confrontation with suspected cartel criminals a year ago and then rearranging the scene by moving bodies and planting guns to support the official version of the bloodshed. “This is very serious, and a massive blow to the government”.
Responding to the rights commission document, the chairman of Mexico’s National Security Committee rejected the characterization of arbitrary executions and defended the actions of police.
In June, at least eight people died in confrontations between rebellious teachers and police in southern Mexico.
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.
The army’s version was that 22 suspects died in a gunfight in which only one soldier was wounded. The army argued they acted in self-defence and three soldiers were acquitted of murder charges. Family members and forensic experts believe some were gunned down as they tried to escape.
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The abandoned ranch house was pocked by high calibre ammunition, some penetrating thick walls. The helicopter was also hit by gunfire, the report said.
