MEXICO Ex-consul freed in setback for prosecutors
A judge has freed and cleared a former Mexican consul accused of participating in a ring that smuggled hundreds of Lebanese migrants into the United States, another setback for the Mexican attorney general’s office.
The release of Imelda Ortiz Abdala, consul to Lebanon from 1999-2001, suggested that Mexican officials may have overreached as they went after a smuggling ring first prosecuted in the U.S.
The attorney general’s office, which did not respond to requests for comment, has been embarrassed by bad arrests recently but often has blamed U.S. intelligence.
This month, officials arrested a Mexico City architect and held him for a week on suspicion he might be top drug lord Vicente Carrillo Fuentes. The office later released the man after DNA tests proved his identity.
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Mexico peasant ecologist freed in murder case
A peasant fighting logging in Mexico's mountains was cleared of murder charges and ordered freed on Thursday after 10 months in jail in a case that sparked international outcry over corruption in the courts.
Felipe Arreaga, 56, who has been held in a sweltering jail on the Pacific coast since November, was exonerated in the 1998 murder of the son of a powerful local landowner, said a rights group working in his defense.
"They declared him innocent," defense lawyer Mario Patron told Reuters by telephone from the courtroom.
Rights workers worldwide had said the charge was
Mexico raids kidnapping ring that filmed victims in cages
Mexican authorities raided a kidnapping ring that filmed its victims being held inside a cage and beaten, federal authorities said Saturday. An abducted businessman was freed and five people were arrested.
Police also confiscated an iron cage in the raid Friday at two houses on the outskirts of Mexico City that led to the arrests of five men ages 18 to 31, the federal attorney general's office said.
The man freed had been held for ransom since May 19 by the group, which was known for filming its victims inside a cage
AP , MEXICO CITY
Tuesday, Jun 21, 2005,Page 7
Advertising A Mexican court has issued four new arrest warrants against former government officials wanted in the forced disappearance of dissidents in the 1970s, special prosecutor Ignacio Carrillo announced on Sunday.
Six members of the Brigada Campesina de los Lacandones were arrested in central Mexican state of Hidalgo in 1974 and turned over illegally to the now-dissolved Federal Security Directorate, never to be seen again, according to prosecutors.
The new arrest orders in the Hidalgo case bring to 16 the number of warrants issued as prosecutors pursue crimes of the so-called "dirty
Mexico says done all it could for dirty war trials
Mexican President Vicente Fox's government on Friday admitted there was little else it could do to punish former officials for their past repression of leftist dissidents after a court dealt the administration another legal setback this week.
A judge this week refused to issue arrest orders for former Mexican President Luis Echeverria and seven others for a 1968 student massacre by police and soldiers.
It was the latest setback to Fox's attempts to bring to justice former members of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, who committed atrocities against leftists for decades. The
Mexico seeks rearrest of agents freed in drug case
Mexico is seeking to get back into custody five Mexican federal agents who were charged in the kidnapping of suspected drug hit men but released by a judge in September, officials said on Saturday.
Mexico arrested eight federal agents on Aug. 31, but a few days later a judge released five of them for lack of evidence.
"We totally respect the decision of the judge but we have appealed because we do not agree (with it)," an official in Mexico's attorney general's office said on condition of anonymity.
The appeal was filed in September,
For migrants passing through Mexico, full detention centers often mean they are set free
After two months of dodging thieves and thundering trains during the perilous journey from Honduras, Marco Antonio Vasquez has finally reached the Rio Grande.
Now plotting his next move, the 26-year-old displaced factory worker sits on the steps of a Reynosa church and worries aloud that, if the Border Patrol catches him, he'll be deported and his hopes of finding a job in Houston will be dashed.
What he may or may not realize is that he would likely be freed in Texas, even after American agents stop
Mexico ex-leader genocide charge
Special prosecutors in Mexico have filed genocide and kidnapping charges against a former Mexican president.
Luis Echeverria, now 83, is accused of ordering a massacre of student protesters in 1968, days before the Olympic Games opened in Mexico City.
As many as 300 people may have died when government agents hidden among regular soldiers opened fire on students, prosecutors allege.
A Mexico City judge must now rule on whether the case should go to trial.
Mr Echeverria is the first former Mexican president to face the possibility of charges for human rights abuses allegedly committed during his
Women's murders rise in city on U.S.-Mexico border
- The number of women murdered in this notorious city on the U.S. border has surged this year, despite a government effort to crack down on crime, prosecutors said on Thursday.
More than 340 women have been strangled, beaten and stabbed to death in Ciudad Juarez, south of El Paso, Texas, in a 12-year killing spree that has provoked outrage in Mexico and abroad and led to calls for decisive government action to end the crimes.
Chihuahua state prosecutors said 30 women and young girls were murdered in the industrial city from Jan. 1 to
Mexico is overstepping boundaries on immigration
DIPLOMACY may be the art of lying for one's country, but Mexican diplomacy requires taking that art to virtuosic heights. Sitting in his expansive office in Mexico's Los Angeles consulate, Deputy Consul General Mario Velazquez-Suarez insists that he and his peers do not interfere in U.S. internal affairs, including immigration matters. "Immigration is an internal discussion," he says.
But it's not quite true. Mexican officials in the United States and abroad interfere almost daily in U.S. sovereignty.
The meddling starts with Mexico's comic book-style guide to breaching the border safely and evading detection once across. The Foreign
Mexico's Ambassador Visits Utah
Local Business Leaders Hope To Have Dialogue On Immigration Issues
SALT LAKE CITY Some Utah business leaders hope the visit by Mexico's ambassador to the US will spark some dialogue on immigration issues.
Ambassador Carlos de Icaza is expected to meet with business leaders at a luncheon on Thursday. Friday, the ambassador will meet privately with the Governor and legislative leadership.
Joe Reyna, chairman-elect of the Utah Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, says Icaza's visit is likely a prelude to a visit by Mexican President Vicente Fox. He says when an ambassador from a country like Mexico comes to
