Supreme Court Frees 3 Convicted for 1997 Acteal, Chiapas Massacre La Prensa
go to original November 24, 2014

Family, friends and neighbors gather to remember 45 people gunned down in 1997 inside a church in the southern Mexican town of Acteal. (EFE)

MEXICO CITY - Mexico's Supreme Court ordered the immediate release of three people serving prison terms for a 1997 massacre in which both the accused and the 45 victims were indigenous people.

The justices voted unanimously to overturn the convictions of Lorenzo Ruiz Vazquez, Jose Guzman Ruiz and Alfredo Agustin Hernandez Ruiz, citing irregularities in the original trial.

The court did not address the question of the guilt or innocence of the defendants, Justice Jose Ramon Cossio said, stressing that the decision to three men was based on violations of their rights to due process.

More than 40 of those convicted and sentenced for the slaughter of 45 people in the southern state of Chiapas have been freed due to problems with the original trial.

Only two people remain behind bars in connection with the Acteal massacre, according to human rights organizations following the case.

On Dec. 22, 1997, a group of men toting assault rifles killed 45 unarmed Tzotzil Indians, including 15 children, as they were praying inside a church in Acteal, Chiapas.

The slaughter occurred during the period when the Mexican government was fighting the Zapatista National Liberation Army, or EZLN, guerrilla group.

Read the rest at Scoop World

Acteal: Ten Years of Impunity - A documentary that tells the truth about the crime of state that occured in December 22, 1997 in the tsotsil community of Acteal, as part of the strategy followed by the mexican government against the organized communities of Chiapas. (Koman Ilel)

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