The Chiapas municipal official — or the husband of one, it’s not clear which — was finally released today three weeks after he was detained by residents of the northern municipality of El Bosque in a dispute over government funding.
An agreement was signed Wednesday that was supposed to give Ramiro González Patishtán his freedom after he was apprehended May 13 in the indigenous Tzotzil community of Los Plátanos.
But a a video surfaced yesterday in which González once again issued a plea to the state government to intervene and speed up the release of the withheld funds.
“I continue to suffer here in Los Plátanos, I am still tied up,” said González in the short clip.
Relief finally came this morning when the municipal development funds, reported to be in the neighborhood of 15 million pesos (US $750,000), were released.
A video earlier this week showed González tied to a stake with a pile of kindling at the bottom. He said his captors had threatened to burn him alive.
State Interior Secretary Mario Carlos Culebro Velasco said on Wednesday that an agreement had been reached and the prisoner was to be released on Friday when the municipality delivered the allocated funds.
But González was forced to wait a few more hours to be freed.
