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V. TORTURE AND EXTRAJUDICIAL EXECUTION IN

TAMAULIPAS STATE

Tamaulipas state, on the northern border with the United States, demonstrates the complexity of human rights problems in Mexico. Abuses there do not stem from the armed conflicts present in southern Mexico, yet arbitrary detention, torture, and extrajudicial execution take place. Both state and federal authorities demonstrate a lack of interest in ensuring that detainees benefit from fair judicial processes and that human rights violators are brought to justice. When questioned on the patently false information used to prosecute Juan Lorenzo Rodríguez Osuna, for instance, the state attorney general told Human Rights Watch, “I would be remiss in my duties if I didn’t prosecute him.”111 It is a sad irony of the cases reviewed here that the victims of human rights violations were more often successfully prosecuted than the human rights violators.

The recent cases described below are not isolated. They clearly conform to a pattern documented for at least a decade by the Tamaulipas-based Center for Border Studies and Promotion of Human Rights (Centro de Estudios Fronterizos y de Promoción de los Derechos Humanos, CEFPRODHAC) and the CNDH. To provide this context, and demonstrate that the patterns of abuse extend through multiple years, this chapter reviews nine torture cases documented by the CNDH in Tamaulipas between 1990 and 1996.

Juan Lorenzo Rodríguez Osuna

On November 28, 1996, State Judicial Police (Policía Judicial del Estado, PJE) arrested Juan Lorenzo Rodríguez Osuna in Tampico. Two days later, a state prosecutor accused him of committing a gruesome double murder that had allegedly taken place on November 13, 1996. Federal prosecutors also eventually charged him with drug trafficking. The irregularities—involving police, prosecutors, and the judge—began early and continued throughout the case. Despite this, Rodríguez Osuna was sentenced on state charges to twenty-five years in prison for murder and, in federal court, to ten years for drug trafficking. At this writing, the state murder charge has been appealed to a federal court, and the drug conviction has been overturned on appeal.

In a report filed on the day of the arrest, police said they set out in search of Rodríguez Osuna after hearing another man, Carlos Gutiérrez Zubieta, confess tobeing Rodríguez Osuna’s accomplice in the double murder.112 According to the report, police, in the company of the witness, pulled over Rodríguez Osuna, who was driving in his truck. After the detainee allegedly insulted them, the officers took him to the station. The report continues: “Once at the station and after calming down, Juan Lorenzo Rodríguez Osuna, in the presence of Carlos Gutiérrez Zubieta, admitted having killed” the homicide victims.113 According to Rodríguez Osuna, events unfolded differently. Police detained him, he maintains, then tortured and interrogated him for several hours, holding a gun to his head and repeatedly making him get in and out of the vehicle in which they held him.

Police taped an interrogation of Rodríguez Osuna that they said took place on November 28, 1996. On the tape, after the detainee repeatedly denies having committed the murder, he finally confesses. Attorney General José Herrera Bustamante told Human Rights Watch that Rodríguez Osuna’s attorney was present during the interrogation,114 which is denied by the detainee. Even though the tape was made by police, who are not permitted to take admissible statements from detainees, the judge accepted it as evidence.

The CNDH strongly criticized the state prosecutor in the case for consenting “to the arbitrary detention carried out by the judicial police.”115 The commission went on to criticize the fact that the prosecutor did not document the time or place of detention, nor when the police brought him to the police station—details that are fundamentally important for establishing the exact time at which the detainee came into police custody and, therefore, whether or not police had time to coerce him prior to handing him over to prosecutors. Authorities assigned a law student who had finished his course work but not received his degree as Rodríguez Osuna’s public defender until his family assigned a private attorney, leading the CNDH to conclude that the defense until the private attorney took over had been “inadequate.”116

Gutiérrez Zubieta was initially charged with aiding Rodríguez Osuna, but the judge eventually changed the accusation to “covering up” the murder, arguing thathe had failed to report Rodríguez Osuna’s acts earlier. Gutiérrez Zubieta told the prosecutor on November 28 that Rodríguez Osuna alone shot the two victims, then borrowed a knife and carved them up, threatening Gutiérrez Zubieta that he would be killed if he fled or reported the incident. Then, in the early morning of November 30, 1996, police say that Gutiérrez Zubieta awoke and demanded to amplify his statement. According to the official version of events, Gutiérrez Zubieta, who told the prosecutor he had forgotten two important points, requested that a particular public defender represent him as he amplified his statement; a police officer was dispatched to wake and bring the public defender to the prosecutor’s office. This took place even though Gutiérrez Zubieta had a private attorney.

Gutiérrez Zubieta’s amplified statement says that Rodríguez Osuna made him return to the scene of the crime the next day. There, Gutiérrez Zubieta claimed, Rodríguez Osuna made sure his victims were dead, mutilated them beyond recognition, and covered the bodies with branches. The declarant also added that after the murder, as the two returned to town in separate cars, Rodríguez Osuna signaled with his headlights to have him pull over. During that time, the amplified declaration states, Rodríguez Osuna carried three large bundles from the vehicle he was driving to the side of the road, although Gutiérrez Zubieta did not know what was in the bundles.117 Police allegedly went to the spot where Gutiérrez Zubieta said the bundles had been dropped and found that they contained marijuana. It is this amplified statement that served as the only basis for the federal drug charge against Rodríguez Osuna. The statement also served to provide the state appeals judge who confirmed the murder sentence, Félix Fernando García Ortegón, with the only explanation of motive for the murder.118

Less than twenty-four hours after allegedly amplifying his statement on November 30, 1996, Gutiérrez Zubieta refused before a state judge to reconfirm it. Before a federal prosecutor on December 3, he again denied amplifying the statement. The case file that summarizes the proceedings from the point of view of the prosecutor’s office notes that Gutiérrez Zubieta “did not want to sign, and Commander Yáñez told him that he was going to kill his family. [GutiérrezZubieta] commented that he wasn’t going to sign if he didn’t have his lawyer, so a guy who looked like a lawyer was called, but the declarant said that he was not his lawyer and that he did not know who that person was.”119 According to the prosecutor’s summary, he finally signed the document under pressure. The statement was used in the murder case against Rodríguez Osuna.

Like the prosecutor, the state judge hearing the murder case was unconcerned about the serious allegations made by Rodríguez Osuna about his arrest and treatment and by Gutiérrez Zubieta’s retraction of the amplified statement. In fact, the judge, Laura Andrea Gallegos Núñez, went out of her way to exclude evidence that favored Rodríguez Osuna. The autopsy of the two alleged murder victims suggests that Rodríguez Osuna could not have murdered the victims in the way described and that the bodies had been moved to the spot where they had been found. It also gives reason to believe that the bodies may not belong to the two people identified as the murder victims. She rejected these findings by saying the autopsy lacked credibility, but she did cite the autopsy when information could be used against Rodríguez Osuna. The bodies were quickly cremated, so no further examination of the victims could take place.

In reviewing the case file, Human Rights Watch also found three documents supposedly issued by the judge that were, in fact, issued on the prosecutor’s stationery. Further, the judge showed a clear lack of concern for the procedural problems that had taken place in the case during the detention and prosecutor’s investigations. She argued, for instance, that the tape of the interrogation submitted as evidence many months after the detention should be accepted as evidence because Rodríguez Osuna had recognized that it was his voice on the tape and that “the declarant did not question in any way the motive for his making the statement as he did.” She contradicted herself shortly thereafter, however, when she noted that he “illogically [affirmed] that he had been threatened, with a pistol to his head, but from the content of the tape, it is not evident that any such threat existed.”120 The judge also accepted Gutiérrez Zubieta’s amplification without questioning why he refused to ratify it.

The federal judge who heard the drug case, José Elías Gallegos Benítez, appears to have used all possible room for discretion in condemning Rodríguez Osuna to ten years’ imprisonment. There was no physical evidence linking the accused man to the marijuana; only Gutiérrez Zubieta’s retracted statement linked Rodríguez Osuna to the drugs. As he did in state court, Gutiérrez Zubieta deniedmaking the statement again in federal court. In a May 27, 1997 federal proceeding in which Gutiérrez Zubieta and Rodríguez Osuna faced each other, the following exchange took place:

Rodríguez Osuna: “Why are you blaming me for this crime?”

Gutiérrez Zubieta: “I was threatened into signing the declaration.”

Rodríguez Osuna: “Who threatened you into signing the declaration against me?”

Gutiérrez Zubieta: “Commander Yáñez was the one who threatened me, putting a pistol to me. When I declined to sign it, he threatened my family. For those reasons I acceded to signing the declaration.” 121

The judge, however, cited the principle of procedural immediacy to accept the retracted amplified statement made by Gutiérrez Zubieta, arguing that supporting evidence existed.122 In fact, of the seven pieces of “corroborating” fact, two were restatements of the charges and the rest were mere conjecture, such as the fact that the prosecutor had indeed found the marijuana and that the truck in which it was allegedly transported by Rodríguez Osuna was found to have a double bed.123 With respect to the retraction, the judge argued, “It cannot be taken into consideration and is ineffective for stripping the validity from the first declaration [the amplification], given that there is insufficient evidence to support the veracity of his word, and, given the principle of procedural immediacy, the first statement made by the declarant should prevail.”124 The judge also cited precedent on “ineffective retractions” that itself cited the principle of procedural immediacy.125

Even though the judge cited other evidence that he said allowed him to favor the amplification of the declaration over the retraction, doing so also conveniently allowed him to avoid examining alleged human rights violations. Indeed, rather than question the way in which Gutiérrez Zubieta gave his alleged amplification, the judge found, “What Carlos Alfonso Gutiérrez Zubieta said turns out to beinexact, with respect to the fact that he was not assisted by his lawyers . . . .”126 Rather, the judge argued, he had been aided by the law student who testified that Gutiérrez Zubieta had solicited his services. The case file makes no reference to any investigation of the circumstances under which the amplification was made.

Initially sentenced to ten years for possession of marijuana, the conviction was thrown out on appeal, essentially because Gutiérrez Zubieta’s alleged amplified declaration did not indicate that he actually saw Rodríguez Osuna with the marijuana.127 The appellate judge did not raise questions about any of the procedural problems encountered in the process. The Office of the Federal Attorney General informed Human Rights Watch that the federal prosecutor who indicted Rodríguez Osuna on drug charges had been punished for doing so, although the office did not specify the type of punishment he received.128 It is encouraging that, on appeal, the federal drug conviction was thrown out. Nonetheless, the prosecutor and trial-level judge accepted evidence that strongly suggested that it had been fabricated and the declarant tortured, and the judge cited legal precedent to avoid showing concern. Given that such problems are part of a pattern, not an anomaly, authorities cannot justify tolerating poor judicial processes on the grounds that the appeals process may correct them. The responsibility of the government to ensure that human rights standards are met during criminal investigations starts when the detainee enters custody and continues throughout the process.

José Alfredo Ponce Reyes

Believing José Alfredo Ponce Reyes to be the man responsible for stealing a six-pack of beer from a Reynosa city convenience store, public security police approached him as he sat in his truck on September 5, 1997. When Ponce Reyes tried to flee, the police opened fire and gravely wounded the man, who was brain-damaged in the incident. According to police, Ponce Reyes’s vehicle struck an officer, and they fired their weapons in the air in an attempt to get him to stop. Evidence exists to suggest that the police opened fire needlessly and recklessly, including testimony from an eyewitness who has said that no police officer was hit by Ponce Reyes’s truck. After the shooting, police abandoned the victim and fledthe scene, later giving contradictory statements to investigators about the way in which they fired their weapons.

Regardless of the circumstances of the shooting, the government failed to respond correctly to the incident. A proper investigation would probably have clarified any doubts about whether police acted appropriately or recklessly and should have led to their punishment, at a minimum, for having abandoned the victim. The investigation was marred by problems. For instance, the prosecutor failed to take testimony from the only eyewitness before concluding his investigation and submitting the case to a judge; the testimony was taken after the case was filed.

Police said they were searching for a man in a similar truck who had just stolen a six-pack of beer from a nearby Seven Eleven. They found no beer in the truck and did not encounter the knife used by the assailant. Ponce Reyes’s truck had Wisconsin license plates, from the United States, similar in appearance to the Texas plates the Seven Eleven clerk had noted were on the get-away vehicle. The officers initially told investigating judicial police officers that they shot at the truck’s tires.129 In later statements, however, four of the five municipal police officers told prosecutors that they only fired warning shots into the air.130 When the prosecutor indicted the officers, he made reference to the police report that said the officers shot at the truck’s tires, but he never sought to clarify the contradiction. The fifth officer—from the passenger seat of the police car that blocked Ponce Reyes in front—claimed that his Uzi fired accidentally when he was knocked to the ground by a fleeing Ponce Reyes.131 “I had the Uzi in my hand, and since the chamber was full, it fired,” officer José Eduardo Ramírez González, who was in the passenger seat, told the prosecutor. “I didn’t fire my weapon at that person or his vehicle.”

An eyewitness explained to Human Rights Watch that Ramírez González’s version of events was not correct, asserting that the officer had not left his patrol car and that he had not been struck by Ponce Reyes’s vehicle. “Only one [police officer] got out of the car,” the witness said. “The copilot absolutely did not get out of the car,” the witness said, “and José did not hit anyone when he took off.”132

The prosecutor indicted the five officers the day after the incident, charging them with “abuse of authority” and “causing wounds.”133 Despite the fact that state judicial police investigations immediately turned up the name of the same eyewitness interviewed by Human Rights Watch,134 the prosecutor did not take her statement until more than a month after the incident—long after he formulated his charges.135 Although the case file indicates that the prosecutor had asked police to notify the witness that her statement was wanted, the witness only gave her statement after a sister of the wounded man sought out the prosecutor in mid-October.136 This witness’s testimony would have had direct bearing on the version of events given by police. Her testimony directly contradicted the officers’ statements that one of them had been hit by Ponce Reyes’s car. Similarly, officials failed to take testimony from other witnesses to the aftermath, such as family members. “Not once did the police or prosecutor take my statement,” the victim’s mother told Human Rights Watch.137

The physical evidence seemed to contradict the police officers’ statements; Human Rights Watch examined Ponce Reyes’s truck, for instance, finding what looked like eleven holes made by what appeared to be bullets of three different calibers. Although Human Rights Watch could not determine with precision the details of the bullet holes, the Human Rights Commission of Tamaulipas State noted in a report on the case that the bullet holes came from more than one weapon.138

On September 8, a judge ruled that the police should be released on bail, since the crimes they were accused of committing were “not serious” according to the state penal code, even though the victim’s life was in danger. The following day, the judge decided to move forward with the prosecutor’s charge of causing wounds but ruled that there were no grounds that the officers had abused their authority. He argued: “There is no indication that the indicated preventive [police] agents went overboard in the exercise of their functions.”139 The judge accepted the argumentthat the Uzi accidentally fired when an officer was knocked to the ground and that the other officers shot only into the air. The officers were released on bail that was, according to the victim’s father, paid by the municipal government.140

When he indicted the officers, the state-level prosecutor noted that a federal crime may also have been committed by some of them. Two of the weapons used by the officers—a .45 automatic and the Uzi—appeared to be for the “exclusive use of the army,” as established by the Federal Law of Firearms and Explosives.141 He resolved to bring his finding to the attention of the federal prosecutors,142 then turned over a certified copy of the file to his federal counterpart. The federal prosecutor never filed weapons charges, according to the Center for Border Studies and Promotion of Human Rights.143

In this case, police used excessive force to stop a fleeing suspect. As the United Nations Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials maintains, police officers shall not use their firearms unless they do so against the imminent threat of death or serious injury. Even if Ponce Reyes had initially posed a threat to one of the police officers, firing at the fleeing suspect after he had passed the officer would have been excessive. The police officers then abandoned Ponce Reyes when they thought he was dead. Their version of events—that they shot into the air or, in one case, fired accidentally—does not coincide with that of an eyewitness or with their initial statement to investigating police. In addition, the witness contradicts the police version indicating that the Uzi fired after the officer holding it was knocked to the ground by Ponce Reyes’s truck. Further, the variety of bullet holes in the truck indicates that at least two separate weapons were fired at the vehicle, which makes it impossible for the accidental firing theory to be correct.

A prosecutor took testimony from a key eyewitness long after the case was submitted to the judge and never took statements from family members who were on the scene shortly after the incident. Though he did have indications that the police had given two versions of their targets upon firing, he never followed up on this key contradiction. When he indicted the officers, he did so for minor charges,failing, for instance, to charge them with attempted murder. His failure to make even a mild case for “abuse of authority” led a judge to throw out the charge.

To his credit, the prosecutor did turn the file over to the federal prosecutors to investigate the possible arms law violation, but federal prosecutors never followed up on the issue.

Erick Cárdenas Esqueda

Municipal police in Nuevo Laredo detained Erick Cárdenas Esqueda, a teenager, on January 4, 1997, allegedly for participating in a street fight. Two hours later, he was found dead in his cell. Police maintain that he hanged himself, but physical evidence suggests he was tortured and then murdered. Authorities have failed to investigate the incident properly.

When discovered in the jail cell, Cárdenas Esqueda’s body rested as if sitting on a cement bench, head tilted forward. A shirt, tied around his neck, extended to the bars of the window above. Police asserted that the bruises on Cárdenas’s face resulted from the street fight that allegedly motivated his arrest. Cárdenas’s body, however, also showed wounds that would have been impossible to receive in a fight but would have been consistent with torture: according to the state medical examiner’s report, Cárdenas’s testicles had been skinned.144 Family members and witnesses said that the victim showed no bruises prior to his detention. “On the night that it took place, he had a problem with some neighbors. He came home afterward, but I clearly saw that he had not been beaten in the face. There was no blood,” Patricia Esqueda, Cárdenas’s mother, related to Human Rights Watch.145 This was because the fight was broken up by neighbors before it came to blows, she said. Her testimony was consistent with that of witnesses to the detention.146

Evidence of murder also exists. According to photographs of Cárdenas taken after he died and reviewed by Human Rights Watch, his back showed two vertical indentations as if he were pulled back with extreme force into the bars of his cell. The marks could not have come from when he allegedly hanged himself, because the bars on which the shirt was tied were above, not behind, him.

There have been several irregularities in the case. Police detained Cárdenas without a warrant. At the time of arrest, there was no disturbance, according to witnesses interviewed by the Center for Border Studies and the Promotion ofHuman Rights, so there could not have been an “in flagrante” excuse for picking him up. Further, if Cárdenas had been badly beaten prior to detention, and had skinned testicles, police should have taken him to a hospital or provided medical attention at the station, which they did not do. Not until nine hours after the alleged suicide did authorities notify Cárdenas’s mother. Almost a year later, investigators had still not taken official testimony from the mother, even though she saw her son just before his arrest and subsequent death.147

The National Human Rights Commission in Tamaulipas

The CNDH has issued at least ten recommendations involving torture in Tamaulipas from as early as the commission began to function in 1990. As explained above, Human Rights Watch reviews these cases here in order demonstrate that the abuses they feature are neither new nor isolated. Indeed, a review of CNDH torture cases from Tamaulipas, in the years 1990 to 1996, clearly shows how the system constructed to protect human rights and investigate and punish violations breaks down consistently at the three fundamental stages: police, prosecutors, and courts.

Police and torture

The most egregious abuses in the state occur at the police level in a predictable pattern. Almost without fail, in cases in which Federal Judicial Police were involved, the detainees were illegally held and tortured prior to being turned over to prosecutors. Common to almost every case is prosecutors’ lack of initiative to follow up on torture allegations or medical exams that describe torture. In some cases, prosecutors simply fail to investigate torture, or they charge police with lesser crimes, such as “abuse of authority.” In other instances, even if the human rights violator is indicted, authorities do not follow up on arrest warrants.

Each of these problems was clearly displayed in the case of Moisés Córdoba Sánchez, a sixteen-year-old who was tortured to death in a Tamaulipas prison on May 13, 1994. Prison guards bound, gagged, and stripped him, then forced him to dance naked. His tormentors raped him with a nightstick, then beat him with broom handles, apparently killing him. Afterward, in an informal punishment room, they applied electrical current to his body to make it appear he had been electrocuted. Prison officials alleged that the inmate had committed suicide by biting exposed wires in the punishment room, a finding supported by a deficient medical exam by the doctor who initially examined the body. However, an examination of the body conducted by the CNDH, after an exhumation, showed that it would have beendifficult for the inmate to have killed himself by biting the wire.148 Rather, the CNDH concluded, the evidence led to the “well-founded presumption” that the victim was dead when brought to the punishment room and that the guards tried to make his death look like a suicide. Prison authorities were indicted for abuse of authority, battery, and making false statements, but not for torture or murder.149 According to the Center for Border Studies and Promotion of Human Rights, the responsible parties remained free as late as August 1997.150

Torture also takes place after arbitrary or prolonged detentions, when authorities detain a suspect without a warrant or other valid justification or when they hold a detainee in excess of legally allowable limits. In the CNDH cases analyzed here, police detentions ranging from four days to a week were standard practice. On November 19, 1990, for instance, Federal Judicial Police officers detained Martín Arroyo Luna and José Brito Navarro for possession of illegal arms and other alleged crimes.151 The detention itself did not violate the law, since the detainees were caught in flagrante. However, police proceeded to hold them far beyond the allowed time before turning them over to prosecutors, and tortured them in the meantime. Three days after their arrest, the victims confessed before the regional PJF commander under duress.152 The case file contains multiple records of medical exams confirming that they had been tortured.153 According to the CNDH, eleven officials were eventually fired, but none appeared to have been prosecuted.154

On June 12, 1996, when inmates at the Reynosa Social Rehabilitation Center escaped, prison guards captured and tortured two men, Armando Santos Orozco and Walter Ricardo Kavieses Soto. They appear to have executed a third man, Cecilio Hernández Herrera, whose death they tried to make seem like a suicide. According to testimony of one of the escaped prisoners, Hernández Herrera had shot and wounded a prison guard while escaping.155 The CNDH found that prison officials’ assertion that the man had killed himself was not probable, given that the bullet that killed him entered from the left side of his head but the gun was found near his right hand.156 The CNDH also decried the prosecutor’s failure to investigate the case properly.157 None of the cases had been properly investigated by the time the CNDH issued its latest annual report, and no action appeared to have been taken with respect to the prosecutor who performed negligently in the false suicide incident.158

Medical exams

In several cases, the CNDH condemns medical reports in Tamaulipas as blatantly contradictory and incomplete. Lucas Mota Gallegos, Angel Rodríguez Aldaba, Rodrigo García Nino, and Ernesto Gallegos Hernández were arrested by the PJF on January 12, 1991, for drug possession and detained for two days during which time they signed confessions.159 Medical reports about the detainees’ condition contained “obvious contradictions.”160 In one exam, the doctors concluded that there appeared to be “no recent external injuries on any of the detainees.” Another doctor, however, had reported just three days earlier that Lucas Mota Gallegos had a two-day-old head wound. According to the CNDH, a further exam was “conclusive in indicating that the wounds [received during torture] were inflicted with the aim of causing physical damage.”161 Arrest warrants were issued against three of the officers, who were detained. The CNDH never published follow-up information indicating what happened to the officers accused of torture.The torture victims were found guilty of drug-related crimes and sentenced in January 1992. One of the victims was also sentenced on a weapons charge.162

Prosecutors’ reluctance to use medical exams clearly stymies their progress on torture cases, as happened in the Arroyo Luna and Brito Navarro case, described above. Equally obstructive is the simple lack of medical documentation of torture. For instance, in Recommendation 4/94, the CNDH found that PJF agents had illegally detained and tortured Manuel Equihua Cervantes and Fidel Martínez Flores in Reynosa city in September 1989. Medical examiners failed to note the bruises that resulted, however, so the PGR decided not to press torture charges against the officers.163 According to the CNDH, the PGR reported in August 1994 that no action would be taken against the officials implicated in torture because, “Even if the victim, Manuel Equihua Cervantes, had bruises at the moment he made his preparatory declaration before the judge who tried him, they were never documented by medical examiners.”164 Given the lack of documentation, the PGR asserted that it would not file charges against the officers believed responsible. The other abuses could not be investigated because of the statute of limitations.

Prosecutors and torture

Prosecutors have two important roles to play in ending torture. First, they must consistently question evidence that may have been received through torture. In order to do so, they must also guard against the commission of procedural irregularities such as arbitrary detentions, which often precede torture. Second, they must fully investigate and prosecute allegations of torture, ensuring that lesser charges are not substituted for torture. In the Córdoba case, described above, in which prison guards raped and killed a sixteen-year-old boy, the prosecutor failed to charge prison officials with torture or homicide, for instance. The same can be seen in other CNDH cases, such as the detention and torture of Martín Moreno Espinoza in Reynosa on April 8, 1993. Moreno Espinoza slipped into a coma and died in August 1993, but despite medical reports showing that he had been tortured, and witness testimony corroborating the torture, the prosecutor merely opened a “battery” investigation into the municipal Preventive Police who had detainedhim.165 However, the officers were not even indicted on the lesser charge.166 After the CNDH issued its recommendation, fourteen municipal Preventive Police in Reynosa were indicted for torture. The prosecutor was eventually suspended for fifteen days without pay for unduly dragging his feet in the investigation.167 In addition, three of the officers were punished administratively with thirty-day suspensions without pay.168 However, a judge never accepted the evidence of torture, so arrest warrants were never issued.169

Additional cases documented by the CNDH

In addition to the CNDH cases from Tamaulipas documented above, the commission has investigated the following torture cases in the state since 1990:

· In Recommendation 1/92, the CNDH found that PJF officers held Salvador Valero Saucedo, Santos Valero Saucedo, Reynaldo Estrada Montes, Perfecto Mireles Guzmán, and Juan Piña Ochoa in Reynosa for four days longer than permitted by law before turning them over to prosecutors. Arrested on April 25, 1990, they were accused of drug-related crimes. During the detention, they were repeatedly beaten and forced to sign confessions, and they were indicted.170 The CNDH did not provide follow-up information on the beatings but did report—without elaboration—that the recommendation that the officers be investigated for the prolonged detention had been completely fulfilled.171 As described above, the fact that the recommendation was considered “completely fulfilled” does not necessarily mean that the perpetrators were ever brought to justice.

· In November 1991, the commission issued Recommendation 105/91, regarding the incommunicado detention and torture of Eloy Izazaga Acosta by Federal Judicial Police agents. Izazaga was forced to sign a false declaration admitting to transporting drugs. In fact, the doctor who practiced a medical exam on the detainee when he entered prison found that there was a well-founded possibility that he had been tortured.172 Federal prosecutors eventually requested four arrest warrants for officials believed responsible. Of those requests, two were denied by the court and one was thrown out because of a procedural error committed by the prosecutor.173 As of 1994, the most recent information on the case provided by the CNDH, the remaining warrant had been issued but not served.174

· In March 1994, the CNDH issued Recommendation 40/94, which found that PJF agents had illegally detained Trinidad Díaz García in July 1989, entering his home without a warrant and arresting and torturing him. The prosecutor held the victim in detention for too long before turning him over to a judge, failed to investigate the PJF abuses, and did not take judicial note of the victim’s bruises. The medical examiner similarly failed to take note of the signs of torture.175 The PGR decided to take no action against the officials, arguing that the statute of limitations prohibited them from doing so.176

111 Human Rights Watch interview, José Herrera Bustamante, Reynosa, Tamaulipas, November 21, 1997.

112 State Judicial Police of Tamaulipas, police report submitted by Alberto Balmori Garza, Juan José Camarillo Garza, José Carlo Enríquez Noyola, and Eusebio Rodríguez Matamoros, November 28, 1996.

113 Ibid.

114 Human Rights Watch interview, José Herrera Bustamante, Reynosa, Tamaulipas, November 21, 1997.

115 National Human Rights Commission, Recommendation 117/97, in Gaceta 89 (Mexico City: Comisión Nacional de Derechos Humanos, December 1997), p. 61.

116 Ibid., p. 63.

117 Amplification of declaration made by Carlos Alfonso Gutiérrez Zubieta, November 30, 1996.

118 According to the judge, “The motive that moved him to commit the crime was the fact that he wanted to take possession of the shipment of drugs that the deceased (José Gerardo Eraña) carried hidden in a double bed of his vehicle.” Supreme Court of Justice of the State of Tamaulipas, sentence in criminal case 377/97, March 19, 1998, p. 38. Translation by Human Rights Watch.

119 Ministerial Declaration made by Carlos Alfonso Gutiérrez Z., December 3, 1996.

120 State Criminal Court of the Seventeenth Judicial District, sentence in criminal case 363/96, September 30, 1996, p. 23. Translation by Human Rights Watch.

121 Transcript of court session, May 27, 1997.

122 Tenth Federal Judicial District in Tamaulipas, sentence in criminal case 1/97, November 13, 1997, pp. 69-71.

123 Ibid., p. 70.

124 Ibid., p. 71. Translation by Human Rights Watch.

125 Ibid., p. 72.

126 Ibid. Translation by Human Rights Watch.

127 First Unified Federal Court of the Nineteenth District in Tamaulipas, sentence in criminal matter 185/97-1-B, June 19, 1998, pp. 86-87.

128 Human Rights Watch interview, Eduardo López Figueroa, director, Internal Affairs, Office of the Federal Attorney General, Mexico City, June 12, 1998.

129 Police report filed by the Delta Group, September 5, 1997.

130 Statement by the accused Juan Eduardo Garza Betancourth, September 5, 1997; statement by the accused Efrén Federico Alonso Méndez, September 5, 1997; statement by the accused Marcial Donato Díaz, September 5, 1997; and statement by the accused Rito Martínez Zúñiga, September 5, 1997.

131 Statement by the accused José Eduardo Ramírez González, September 5, 1997.

132 Human Rights Watch interview, witness, Reynosa, November 21, 1997.

133 File 892/97, document 1951, September 6, 1997.

134 Police report, September 5, 1997.

135 Human Rights Watch interview, witness, Reynosa, November 21, 1997.

136 Ibid.

137 Human Rights Watch interview, María Elena Reyes de Ponce, Reynosa, November 21, 1997.

138 Tamaulipas State Human Rights Commission, Recommendation 34/98, April 6, 1998, p. 20. The commission wrote that “the bullets found in José Alfredo Ponce Reyes’s truck were fired by the weapons in possession of the Preventive Police agents.”

139 Second State Criminal Court of the Sixth District of Tamaulipas, resolution of judicial situation, criminal case 314/997, September 9, 1997.

140 Letter from Heriberto Ponce to Dante Schiaffini Barranco of the National Human Rights Commission, May 27, 1998.

141 Article 11(d) of this law holds, “Arms, munitions and materials for the exclusive use of the army, navy and air force are the following: automatic pistols, carbines and rifles, submachine guns, and [machine guns] of all calibres.” Translation by Human Rights Watch.

142 Office of the State Attorney General of Tamaulipas, indictment, September 6, 1997.

143 Human Rights Watch telephone interview, Arturo Solís, president, Center for Border Studies and the Promotion of Human Rights, July 8, 1998.

144 Medical report, January 5, 1997.

145 Human Rights Watch interview, Patricia Esqueda de Cárdenas, Nuevo Laredo, November 20, 1997.

146 Center for Border Studies and Promotion of Human Rights, “Caso Erick,” Acta No. 03-97, Enero 1997.

147 Human Rights Watch interview, Patricia Esqueda de Cárdenas.

148 National Human Rights Commission, Recommendation 24/95, in Gaceta 55 (Mexico City: Comisión Nacional de Derechos Humanos, February 1995), p. 177.

149 National Human Rights Commission, Informe anual de actividades mayo 1994-mayo 1995 (Mexico City: Comisión Nacional de Derechos Humanos, 1995), p. 115.

150 Center for Border Studies and Promotion of Human, Casos presentados al relator de la ONU en su visita a México, August 1997, p. 9. Human Rights Watch did not obtain more recent data on the whereabouts of the perpetrators.

151 National Human Rights Commission, Recommendation 73/91, August 23, 1991 (original version), p. 2

152 Ibid., p. 4

153 Ibid.

154 National Human Rights Commission, Tercer informe semestral junio-diciembre de 1991 (Mexico City: Comisión Nacional de Derechos Humanos, 1991), p. 81. In this report, the commission noted that the recommendation had been completely fulfilled. The officers who were fired were not included in the report’s list of state agents who had been prosecuted. Subsequent commission reports simply list the recommendation as fulfilled, without updating the 1991 commission report with respect to this case.

155 National Human Rights Commission, Recommendation 105/96, in Gaceta 76 (Mexico City: Comisión Nacional de Derechos Humanos, November 1996), p. 140.

156 Ibid., p. 145.

157 Ibid.

158 National Human Rights Commission, Informe anual de actividades mayo 1996-mayo 1997 (Mexico City: Comsión Nacional de Derechos Humanos, 1997), pp. 186-87.

159 National Human Rights Commission, Recommendation 91/92, May 11, 1992 (original version), p. 82

160 Ibid., p. 88

161 Ibid., p. 89

162 Ibid., p. 88.

163 National Human Rights Commission, Recommendation 4/94, Gaceta 45 (Mexico City: Comsión Nacional de Derechos Humanos, April 1994), p. 48.

164 National Human Rights Commission, Informe anual de actividades mayo 1994-mayo 1995, p. 447.

165 National Human Rights Commission, 137/95, in Gaceta 64 (Comisión Nacional de Derechos Humanos, November 1995), pp. 233-35.

166 National Human Rights Commission, Informe anual de actividades mayo 1995-mayo 1996 (Mexico City: Comisión Nacional de Derechos Humanos, 1996), p. 106.

167 National Human Rights Commission, Informe anual de actividades mayo 1996-mayo 1997, p. 542.

168 National Human Rights Commission, Informe anual de actividades mayo 1995-mayo1996, p. 108.

169 National Human Rights Commission, Informe anual de actividades mayo 1996-mayo 1997, p. 542.

170 National Human Rights Commission, Recommendation 1/92, in Gaceta 19 (Mexico City: Comisión Nacional de Derechos Humanos, February 1992), pp. 23- 24.

171 National Human Rights Commission, Informe anual de actividades mayo 1992-mayo 1993 (Mexico City: Comisión Nacional de Derechos Humanos, 1993), p. 193.

172 National Human Rights Commission, Recommendation 105/91, November 4, 1991 (original version).

173 National Human Rights Commission, Informe anual de actividades mayo 1992-mayo 1993, p. 183.

174 National Human Rights Commission, Informe anual de actividades mayo 1993-mayo 1994 (Mexico City: Comisión Nacional de Derechos Humanos, 1994), p. 514.

175 National Human Rights Commission, Recommendation 40/94, in Gaceta 45 (Mexico City: Comisión Nacional de Derechos Humanos, April 1994), p. 369.

176 National Human Rights Commission, Informe anual de actividades mayo 1996-mayo1997, p. 312.

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