Jailed Washington State Vigilante Becomes Political Football in Mexico Associated Press - The Associated Press
go to original January 14, 2015

This 2009 file family photo provided by Grisel Rodriguez shows Nestora Salgado, who has been detained since she was arrested Aug. 21, 2013 in the state of Guerrero, south of Mexico City, where she had been leading a vigilante group targeting police corruption and drug cartel violence. (AP Photo/Grisel Rodriguez)

A proposal to free a female vigilante leader who holds dual U.S.-Mexico nationality has become a subject of heated debate in Mexico.

The case of Nestora Salgado has pitted supporters who claim she is a crime-fighter and victim of a political vendetta, against victims-rights activists, who say freeing her would be an added offense to victims of unlawful detention.

Salgado returned from Washington state, where she lived and obtained U.S. citizenship, to her hometown of Olinala in southern Guerrero state to head a vigilante-style community police force.

She was arrested in August 2013, after people detained by vigilantes complained they had been kidnapped. Some said Salgado's force had demanded payments in exchange for releasing them.

Last week, Guerrero Governor Rogelio Ortega suggested last week that charges against Salgado be dropped.

But anti-crime activist Isabel Miranda de Wallace said Monday that freeing her would be a violation of victims' rights, and that the governor's intervention constituted improper political pressure on prosecutors, who have the final say on such decisions.

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