Alfredo Corchado: Massacre Defendant's Release Upsets Victims in Mexico Alfredo Corchado - The Dallas Morning News
go to original November 23, 2013

Israel Arzate and his mother, Guadalupe Melendez, answered questions at a Mexico City news conference after he was released for lack of evidence he took part in a massacre. (Eduardo Verdugo/The Associated Press)

CIUDAD JUÁREZ, Mexico — The gunman fired three times, hitting the victim in the back, arm and head. Much later, when the suspect appeared in a courtroom here, the victim calmly pointed and said, “That’s him.”

The victim, who testified in court from behind a one-way glass, also requested anonymity in an interview “not for my safety — I know how a bullet feels — but for the safety of my loved ones.”

After the shooting, which took place during one of the country’s most notorious massacres, the victim lay in a coma for two months.

But the victim’s emotional wounds were suddenly reopened recently when the Mexican Supreme Court ordered the defendant, Israel Arzate, released from jail for lack of evidence amid signs that his confession was extracted under torture. The decision sent human rights organizations — supporters of Arzate — celebrating what they called due process at work and the release of an innocent man.

“It has been widely documented that Israel was tortured and that the confession he signed after being tortured was the only evidence that linked him to the crime,” said Maureen Meyer, director of the Mexico project at the Washington Office on Latin America and one of the more vocal defenders of Arzate.

“Mexico will not be able to bring justice to the victims of violence and their family members until it has police who are capable of gathering evidence that stands up in court and a justice system that works and refuses to accept evidence obtained through torture,” she said.

But relatives of the massacre victims are up in arms and pressing authorities to refile the case.

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