MEXICO CITY: A Mexican judge has formally placed seven soldiers under pre-trial detention over the June killing of suspected criminals in a case denounced by human rights groups, authorities said Friday.
Three of the soldiers will face a civilian trial on homicide charges while all seven have been accused of crimes against public service, the Federal Judicial Council said in a statement.
The three murder suspects have also been charged with altering a crime scene. The army announced on June 30 that soldiers had killed 22 gang suspects in a shootout in Tlatlaya, 240 kilometers south of Mexico City.
But a witness later told Esquire magazine that the soldiers had executed 21 of the suspects, including her teenage daughter, after they surrendered.
The governmental National Human Rights Commission said last month that at least 12 of the suspects were killed after giving themselves up and that the crime scene had been fiddled with to make it look like they died in a shootout.
Comments
Comments are closed.