From the Mexican news agency APRO, June 27, via Chiapas95 (our translation):
Toluca- The first penal judge based in Tenang del Valle formally brought charges against 13 of the 21 police detained by the Mexican [state] prosecutor in the Atenco case.
The judge determined that there is sufficient evidence to begin a penal process for the crime of abuse of authority against the 13 unifromed members of the State Security Agency (ASE), in relation to various excesses commited in the transfer of those detained at Atenco to Santiaguito jail on May 14.
Nonetheless, the arrested officers may be released on bail, as the charges are not considered serious…
Members of the General Striek Committee (CGH) and the United Peoples Front in Defense of the Land (FPUDT) rallied today at the gate of the Mexican Congress, to protest the measures the Mexican state government has taken in the Atenco case, and to demand the immediate release of those who remain detained at Santiaguito.
Meanwhile, inside the Camber of Deputies, ASE director Wilfrido Robledo and Mexico state prosecutor Abel Villicana were questioned by legislators about the operations of May 3 and 4 in Texcoco and Atenco.
In the plenary session, PRD legislator Emilio Ulloa Perez accused Villicana and Robledo of ineptitude for their failure to bring justice in the grave crimes committed at Atenco during the violent eruption of the public forces in the locality… He accused the PRI government of [Mexican state governor] Enrique Pena Nieto of having “stained its hands in blood.”
Emilio Ulloa Perez protested that up to now, it has still not been determined who committed the homicides of the 14-year-old boy Javier Cortes Santiago, and of the UNAM student Alexis Benhumea, while in the case of the more than 200 people arrested, the police acted quickly…
Elsewhere in Mexico City, residents of San Salvador Atenco presented a formal petition to the Prosecutor General of the Republic, demanding torture charges be brought against those responsible for abuse of many of the 200 detained at the village.
The lawyer for the protesters, Juan de Dios Hernandez, said that he was given an appointment of July 3 for a personal meeting with Prosecutor General Daniel Cabeza de Vaca.
Justice in the Atenco case has become a major demand of the Zapatista “Other Campaign,” which has indefinitely halted its national tour in Mexico City while the case is resolved. A photo and report of a recent Zapatista rally for Atenco in Mexico City’s central plaza is online at UK Indymedia. Updates are also online at the Enlace Zapatista site.
See our last posts on Mexico, Atenco crisis and the Zapatista tour.
