Five men arrested for homicide have spent almost 12 years in preventive imprisonment awaiting trial in Baja California.
They were accused of belonging to a gang and killing three individuals in Mexicali in 2007.
The 12 police officers involved said they arrested the men on the street but defense attorneys say the officers forced their way into their clients’ home to make the arrests.
The five were then transported to an unknown location where they were beaten before being placed them in custody, their lawyers claim.
They said the case has been plagued with incompetence and negligence as well as the implementation of the new criminal justice system.
In addition, they cited an earthquake in April 2010 that caused a hiatus of the entire state justice system, inquiries that were long and delayed and a heavy work overload in the justice system.
The attorneys claim that the defendants’ human rights have been violated due to the excessive time they have spent in preventive imprisonment.
A judge ruled four months ago that the case “should be resolved as soon as possible.”
The area in Veracruz where hidden graves have been identified.
A property with a large number of hidden graves has been located in Veracruz, the state attorney general said yesterday.
Jorge Winckler Ortiz said that authorities have so far only examined 10% of the surface of the land but have already detected 36 graves.
“The property has already been secured by the Attorney General’s Office and after a preliminary inspection in which specialized search technologies were used . . . 36 positive points of probable hidden graves have been found,” he said.
Located in the municipality of La Antigua in the center of the Gulf coast state, the site is difficult to access, Winckler said, adding that the exhumation of bodies won’t start until next week.
The attorney general explained that statements from people interviewed in relation to missing persons cases helped locate the property.
Winckler said it is believed that the site was used by a criminal gang to dispose of the bodies of its victims but the date when it ceased to be used for that purpose is unknown.
He added that the preliminary inspection of the property indicated that bodies could be buried at a depth of less than one meter.
The newspaper El Financiero reported that there could be more than 200 bodies in the makeshift graves, according to non-government sources who have seen the property.
National Search Commissioner Karla Quintana Osuna said that collectives made up of family members of missing persons will be invited to supervise further search efforts at the property.
Since President López Obrador took office in December, she added, around 100 hidden graves have been found throughout Mexico.
Several clandestine graves where hundreds of people were buried have been found in Veracruz in recent years.
In September, at least 174 skulls were exhumed from 32 graves on a property in Arbolillo, a sleepy fishing village on the Gulf of Mexico, and in 2017 more than 200 bodies were found in mass graves in Colinas de Santa Fe, a neighborhood on the outskirts of the port city of Veracruz.
The three CJNG members sentenced for drug trafficking and weapons offenses.
Three members of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) who had been active in the Lagos de Moreno region of Jalisco have been sentenced to between 17 and 37 years in jail.
The three criminals operated as hitmen in collaboration with the Familia Michoacana cartel, targeting rival organizations such as the Gulf and Valencia cartels. The three were also known to be involved in a drug trafficking operation that extended to the greater Guadalajara area.
The judge found them guilty of possession of marijuana, cocaine and methamphetamine with intent to sell and possession of restricted firearms.
Jairo Josué N. was sentenced to 36 years and 11 months in prison and fined 47,782 pesos (US $2,500), while his accomplice, Genaro N.,, got 31 years and must pay a fine of 38,772 pesos.
Eduardo N. will serve 16 years and 11 months and pay a fine of 18,717 pesos.
The three men were arrested in 2011 by army personnel after an anonymous citizen’s report said a group of armed men was traveling in a vehicle between San Julián and San Diego de Alejandría.
The landfill fire that started Sunday in Guadalajara.
A fire at a landfill in Guadalajara, Jalisco, that had burned out of control since Sunday evening and triggered an air quality alert has been controlled.
State Civil Protection officials announced shortly after noon today that the fire had been controlled.
The agency reported that 134 firefighters from different fire departments had fought the blaze at the Los Laureles landfill.
The state health and transportation departments also responded to the emergency, distributing face masks and basic medical care.
Emergency crews also kept an eye on an apartment complex just 500 meters away from the fire.
Residents in the area blamed the blaze on a garbage company and government authorities, claiming that the landfill was supposed to have closed in 2008.
Contributing to the city’s air quality emergency, yet another fire broke out in Guadalajara’s Primavera Forest yesterday. Seventy firefighters and three helicopters worked to control the blaze, dumping thousands of liters of water from above.
Striking workers from the Autonomous Metropolitan University took over the Tlalpan toll plaza early this morning, adding to the chaos on the Mexico City-Cuernavaca highway as thousands escaped the capital for the Easter vacation.
The workers asked motorists for a “voluntary” 50-peso donation to their cause, provoking wait times of more than an hour at the toll booths.
Yesterday, protesters took over toll booths on the Mexico City-Puebla and Mexico City-Querétaro highways.
The university staff ended their occupation at Tlalpan six hours after they began, but they were followed by a group of motorcyclists who said they were seeking funds victims of accidents and protesting new Mexico City legislation on helmets and other protective gear.
Both groups occupied the same toll plaza last week.
Mexican authorities have begun implementing stricter immigration policies amid pressure from the United States to stop the flow of migrants from Central America.
When he took office in December, President López Obrador pledged that his government would treat migrants more humanely than that of his predecessor, Enrique Peña Nieto.
In January, his administration issued around 13,000 humanitarian visas to migrants who entered Mexico at the southern border that month.
The visas allow recipients to work and access services in Mexico for up to a year or, if they choose, travel legally to the northern border to apply for asylum in the United States.
The National Immigration Institute (INM) issued a few thousand additional visas in February but none since, an immigration official who requested anonymity told the news agency Reuters.
According to other sources familiar with Mexican immigration policy who also spoke to Reuters, near-daily pressure from the United States government has resulted in the secretariats of the Interior (Segob) and Foreign Affairs (SRE) pushing the INM to adopt a tougher approach towards migrants.
Indeed, detentions of undocumented migrants for registration increased to 12,746 last month, according to unreleased INM data seen by Reuters, an increase of almost one-third compared to February and two-thirds compared to January.
The INM says that migrants staying at its facilities are not detained but being held for processing but rights groups and the migrants themselves say that they are not free to leave.
Thousands of migrants have been stranded in Chiapas, especially Tapachula and Mapastepec, as they wait to see if they will be granted humanitarian visas, or at least 20-day transit visas that allow them to legally travel through Mexico.
In the latter town, some of the migrants have been staying inside a makeshift shelter set up inside a sports stadium for almost three weeks, while others have camped in a field opposite.
Some 2,600 migrants are in this caravan that left Huixtla, Chiapas, this morning.
“It’s madness that they’re making us wait so long. For what? For nothing!” said Daisy Maldonado, a 26-year-old from Honduras who traveled to Mexico with her five-year-old daughter.
With migrants facing oppressive conditions in high temperatures – those camping in the field have no ready access to water, medical attention or government assistance – a coalition of more than a dozen human rights and humanitarian aid groups warn that there is a “humanitarian crisis” unfolding in Chiapas.
The coalition said that the detention center in Tapachula is severely overcrowded and that the confusion over whether visas will be issued or not is worsening the migrants’ plight.
“The government is responding with practices and repressive methods similar to the previous administration in terms of control and deportation, but in a way that’s even more disorderly [and] in some ways, it’s worse,” said Salva Lacruz, a coordinator of the Fray Matias de Cordova migrant advocacy group.
INM Commissioner Tonatiuh Guillén López said in a recent interview that a “stricter” immigration approach was being adopted in the south of Mexico due to the large number of arrivals but he denied that it was a result of pressure from the United States.
Whereas migrants were once effectively given free passage to travel through Mexico, the INM said yesterday that the migrants in Mapastepec would only be able to request seven-day visas that will limit their legal stay to Mexico’s southern states.
It is unclear when migrants in Tapachula might be issued visas as the INM office in that city closed following a riot last month. Thousands more migrants are stranded in cities on Mexico’s northern border.
In addition to detaining migrants, immigration authorities are also deporting them.
Two large groups of migrants – 204 from Honduras and 148 from Cuba – were deported from Mexico in recent days after they were located traveling through the country without having first regularized their immigration status.
“Migration officials are grabbing us like pigs,” said Erick Morazan, a 28-year-old Honduran migrant who traveled to Mapastepec at night in a “caravan of zombies” to avoid detection by immigration officials and the possibility of deportation.
For young Catholics in Tlalixtac de Cabrera, Oaxaca, preparations for the town’s ambitious Passion of Christ procession begin at least a year ahead of time.
The pageant depicts the final days of Christ according to Catholic tradition, beginning with his triumphal entry into Jerusalem before the Last Supper, his trial, crucifixion and death on Good Friday.
The 44th edition of the Tlalixtac event is expected to draw 10,000 spectators, the number who attended last year.
To be selected as one of the reenactment’s 100 participants, young hopefuls must meet a wide variety of strict requirements. These include attending mass every Sunday in the year leading up to the procession, actively participating in the devotional life of the church and demonstrating moral and ethical behavior in public and at home.
In addition, they must attend prayer meetings in May and June, attend organizational meetings for the procession every eight days and carry out unpaid community service projects. As a special condition, participants may not live with romantic partners out of wedlock.
For the past five months, the young men, women, boys and girls who will portray various biblical characters in the procession have prepared almost tirelessly, both mentally and physically, with the guidance of spiritual advisors from the church.
The physical preparations entail getting the youths ready to walk barefoot in the town’s streets for over seven kilometers.
Yuridia Vianey, 13, was selected this year to play the part of the Virgin Mary after she was personally inspired by a previous Passion of Christ event to ask for the role.
“I’ve come to see [the Passion] for years now. I liked the speech that Mary delivers to Jesus in the pageant, and so I said, ‘Some day that’s going to be me,’ and it’s finally my turn to give the speech. I have participated as part of the village for three years, and so last year I asked for the role of Mary and they gave it to me.”
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Carpinter Erick García Contreras, 23, will represent Jesus. He takes the role seriously, running several kilometers every day, eating healthily and regularly walking around town barefoot.
García has participated for 12 years in other roles in the procession, but he asked for the role of Jesus this year in the hopes of communicating his faith to spectators.
“I asked for the role to be able to get people to think about and understand what our Lord Jesus Christ did for us so they don’t do evil.”
Bo Poole and Diego Pérez during construction of the giant chess piece.
While sitting at an airport and scrolling through Facebook, Canadian Larry Wright came across an article about the world’s largest king chess piece.
It is six meters high, according to Guinness World Records, and sits at the World Chess Hall of fame in St. Louis, Missouri. Inspired, he decided that he had to build one, not only bigger, but one that would support a good cause.
Wright chose an organization he has supported and volunteered for over the years — the Talita Cumi children’s home, an orphanage located in the tiny pueblo known as Las Pozas, a few kilometers from Zihuatanejo, Guerrero.
Supported mostly by donations through fundraising events including a blues festival and the kindness of visitors and volunteers, Talita Cumi is currently home to 15 children ranging in age from 2 to 17.
Wright approached friend and fellow Mexico vacationer, famed Canadian totem pole carver Jack Olson, and asked him if he would like to be a part of the project. Always looking to stay busy, even on vacation, Jack agreed to take it on.
The chess piece was the tallest in the world until recently.
Another friend, Bo Poole, heard about the project and was convinced it was a crazy idea, but Wright says that if it wasn’t for his expertise in construction, along with Mexican Diego Pérez, the project would never have happened. Even a few of the children got involved in sanding the piece.
The small but highly motivated group set out to build and carve and beat the world record. Beautifully wrought and intricate, the gigantic carving stands nearly 6 1/2 meters high and was donated to the Museo Arqueológico de Costa Grande in Centro Zihuatanejo last year.
Although not confirmed by Guinness as the tallest, the chess piece beat the world record by almost a meter (until the owners of the piece in Missouri made theirs a little higher).
No matter, Wright says, it is incredible that it was even built, a monument to what can happen when people of three countries work together. And, at a cost of US $10,000, it is truly a masterpiece in many people’s eyes.
When asked about the effort that went into the project, Wright freely admits that the whole process was much more labour intensive than originally anticipated. Olson roughed in the piece with a chainsaw and then hand-carved it with a hammer and chisel.
Putting the pieces together was backbreaking work. In all the project took four to five weeks at a local lumberyard near the children’s home in Las Pozas before it was taken by truck in pieces to its final home and set in place by a crane.
A beacon of hope and love for abandoned children, it is Wright’s wish that the piece will increase awareness for the orphanage and perhaps funding and donations for it.
• Talita Cumi is an active registered non-profit entity officially operating under the name Casa Hogar, Talita Cumi A.C. It provides a safe group home for a number of the neglected and often abandoned children in the Zihuatanejo area.
The writer is a Canadian who has lived and worked in Mexico for many years.
The Chetumal International Airport terminal will be expanded this year to meet the needs of an increasing number of passengers.
Airport operator Aeropuertos y Servicios Auxiliares (ASA), a federal government-owned corporation, announced a competitive tendering process for companies interested in adding almost 2,500 square meters of space to the terminal in the Quintana Roo capital.
New stores, public washrooms, security areas, airline offices and waiting rooms are all part of the project.
ASA has a Congress-approved budget of 150 million pesos (US $8 million) to spend on the improvements.
Eight companies have so far submitted bids of between 47 million and 71 million pesos to build the terminal addition. The winning bidder will be announced on April 30.
ASA is also looking for a construction company to build a new control tower, which is expected to cost around 35 million pesos (US $1.8 million).
The airport operator first presented an expansion plan and application for funding to the federal government in 2014. Since then, the runway at the Chetumal airport has been extended but most other projects outlined in the plan were not undertaken.
The number of passengers who use the airport annually has increased from 120,000 in 2014, when Interjet was the only airline that flew to and from Chetumal, to more than 320,000 last year.
Volaris, Maya Air and VivaAerobus operate flights to the city, which is located just north of the border with Belize.
The federal government’s plan to relocate the Secretariat of Tourism (Sectur) to Chetumal and construction of the Maya Train are expected to generate further growth in passenger numbers in the coming years.
López Obrador and Aparicio among most influential.
President López Obrador and Oscar-nominated actress Yalitza Aparicio are among Time magazine’s “100 most influential people of 2019.”
The two Mexicans appear alongside notable names including Pope Francis, United States President Donald Trump, singer Lady Gaga, former U.S. first lady Michelle Obama and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.
The list is divided into five categories — pioneers, artists, leaders, icons and titans.
As is customary, short biographies or tributes written by prominent figures explain why each of the 100 people on the list deserves his or her place.
In the case of López Obrador, the guest author was Jorge Ramos, a United States-based Mexican journalist who clashed with the president at a morning press conference last week over the accuracy of the government’s homicide figures.
“More than 30 million Mexicans voted for a change in the last election, and that’s exactly what they got,” Ramos wrote.
“President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (or AMLO, as he is called) travels in economy class and refuses to live in the presidential mansion of Los Pinos; his main message is against corruption; and every morning, at 7:00 am, he gives a press conference (known as lamañanera). Yes, it is in sharp contrast with previous leaders. But is that what Mexico really needs?” he continues.
Ramos goes on to point out that the president’s “full control of the Congress and his very personal style of making decisions have raised flags among those who don’t want another authoritarian populist.”
He notes that AMLO has managed to “deactivate” Trump by not responding to the U.S. president’s threatening tweets towards Mexico but adds that “to the dismay of many, the leftist politician has rejected calls to denounce the dictatorship in Venezuela.”
Ramos contends that López Obrador’s “big test” is to combat violence in Mexico before concluding with a prediction that challenges the president’s messianic status among his staunchest supporters.
“AMLO waited 12 years to become president, and he is in a hurry to act. But sooner or later he will realize that just one person cannot save Mexico. Others have tried and failed.”
Writing about Aparicio – the 25-year-old star of Roma – the film’s director Alfonso Cuarón says that the Mixtec woman from Oaxaca “defies paradigms.”
He points out that “before starring in Roma, she had no acting experience, yet she earned an Academy Award nomination for best actress in a leading role,” adding that she also overcame her fear of the ocean and learned the Mixteco language for the film.
“Yalitza can take any task that’s put in front of her and excel in ways no one thought possible,” Cuarón declares.
The director explains that he knew from the moment he met Aparicio that she “was the one” to take on the role of Cleo, a domestic worker and the protagonist of Roma.
Cuarón writes that Aparicio is “incredibly grounded in her truth and not easily swept away by the glitz and glamour of Hollywood,” adding that “she focuses on being a force of change and empowerment for indigenous women, embracing the symbolic value of what she has done and carrying that responsibility with dignity and grace.”
The former preschool teacher from the town of Tlaxiaco is one of 48 women on the Time list, an increase of three from last year and double the number that appeared on the inaugural list in 2004.
Cuarón concludes by writing that he deeply admires Aparicio and hopes that she will continue acting and evolving her craft.
“Selfishly, I want to see more of her onscreen. She has an amazing gift . . .”
