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Judi Lynn

(160,218 posts)
Wed Oct 22, 2014, 06:17 PM Oct 2014

Mexico military kill 15 suspected criminals

Mexico military kill 15 suspected criminals


[font size=1]
bullet holes and blood stains cover a wall above papers marking where bodies were found in
an unfinished warehouse that was the site of a shootout between Mexican soldiers and alleged
criminals on the outskirts of the village of San Pedro Limon, in Mexico state, Mexico [/font]

MEXICO CITY: At least 12 and probably 15 of the 22 people killed by soldiers at a rural warehouse last summer were executed, the president of the governmental Human Rights Commission said Tuesday, contradicting both the army’s and prosecutors’ versions of the mass killing in southern Mexico. Commission President Raul Plascencia called it “one of the most serious human rights violations that can be committed” and issued a formal recommendation demanding prosecutors investigate what he said were attempts to cover up the executions of the suspected gang members. Three of the victims were adolescents. Plascencia said bodies were moved and the crime scene was altered to mimic a shootout – the army’s initial explanation of what happened.

The human rights investigation turned up gruesome details, including that someone had twisted the head of one suspect until his neck broke, Plascencia said at a news conference.

Four other bodies had marks of having been beaten with blunt objects before they were killed. Bullet marks and other evidence indicated that seven others among the dead were lined up near three of the warehouse’s walls and shot “when they were disarmed and were not resisting,” Plascencia said. His report constituted the third official version of what happened at the abandoned warehouse in the town of San Pedro Limon in southern Mexico.

The army initially said all 22 suspected gang members died during a gunbattle with soldiers, but Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam said recently that eight of the 22 had presumably been extrajudicially executed. The army’s version almost immediately came under question because only one soldier was wounded The Associated Press visited the scene three days after the shootings and found evidence suggesting some of the dead may have been executed. A witness later told the AP that only one man died in an initial shootout and all the others were shot after surrendering. Three soldiers face civilian murder charges and eight soldiers face military discipline charges in the case. Federal prosecutors say that the three entered the warehouse and killed suspects who were no longer fighting and that the other five soldiers, including an officer, stayed outside. But Plascencia said his commission’s investigations found a scene of such brutality that it raised questions on whether three soldiers alone could have carried out the acts. The report marks the latest chapter in a string of government contradictions over the killings.

More:
http://news.kuwaittimes.net/mexico-military-kill-15-suspected-criminals/

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