Some 22 suspected gang members were arbitrarily executed in a confrontation with police in western Mexico previous year, Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission said on Thursday, the latest grim example of rights abuses by security forces.
Advertisement
The commission said it found evidence that 22 civilians were executed, four died from excessive force and two were tortured.
“We established facts that imply grave human rights violations attributable to public servants of the federal police”, Raul Gonzalez, the president of the CNDH, told Reuters.
The government’s National Human Rights Commission said on Thursday (18 August) that the one-sided fight left 42 members of the gang dead and one injured.
The commission also threw doubt on the government’s explanation of what led to the clash in the first place. But the commission’s account said the officers arrived at the ranch in a “stealthy manner” as much as two hours earlier.
Officers said they had returned fire in self-defence but the high death toll aroused suspicions. One died in a fire and another was run over.
The CNDH report suggests that police raided the ranch early in the morning – when numerous suspected cartel members were sleeping – with conflicting evidence as to how the victims were killed. “They acted in legitimate defence”.
According to the agency’s report, after the federal police officer was shot, police called for backup.
Mexico’s federal police, the army and the navy have always been implicated in abuses since a drug war that has claimed more than 100,000 lives began in 2006.
However, CNDH claims that a Black Hawk helicopter that was backing the police officers fired shells into the cellar and the house of Rancho del Sol.
A helicopter killed at least five people, the report says.
Gonzalez said that officers moved weapons to manipulate the scene and relocated seven of the bodies. The human rights watchdog also found that the Michoacan Attorney General’s Office was at fault for mishandling the ballistics evidence. One policeman was killed in the battle.
Stay on topic – This helps keep the thread focused on the discussion at hand.
Advertisement
Be Civil – It’s OK to have a difference in opinion but there’s no need to be a jerk.
