Judge Frees 2 Witnesses to Mexican Army Killings After Prosecutors Fail to Bring Charges The Associated Press
go to original December 16, 2014

MEXICO CITY - A federal judge dismissed criminal charges on Monday against two women who witnessed the June 30 army killing of suspected drug gang members in southern Mexico.

The judge in Mexico state ordered their immediate release after federal prosecutors failed to bring charges. The women had been held in a prison in western Nayarit state for more than five months for allegedly possessing weapons.

The two survived the mass slaying of the 22 suspected gang members and were jailed in violation of their human rights, after they were tortured and sexually threatened into backing the army’s version of the incident, according to Raul Plascencia, the former president of the National Commission on Human Rights who oversaw the commission’s investigation into the slayings.

The army originally claimed all 22 suspects died in a fierce shoot-out. The two women, along with a third witness, have testified to authorities that most of the suspects had surrendered and were unarmed when they were shot by soldiers.

The two were not affiliated with the suspected gang members who were killed, Plascencia said last month. Rather, they were prostitutes hired to accompany a leader of the group that met in an abandoned warehouse in southern Mexico on June 29.

The statement on Monday from Mexico’s Council of the Federal Judiciary did not name the women. They and their lawyers could not be reached for comment.

Read the rest at Gulf News

Report by Human Rights Watch accuses military and police of abducting and killing dozens during six-year drug war. Al Jazeera's John Hendren reports from Mexico City. (AlJazeeraEnglish)

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