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VIII. IMPUNITY AND PUNISHMENT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS IN MEXICO

“Impunity” may be the most common word employed by nongovernmental human rights organizations to describe the Mexican government’s response to abuses. For its part, Human Rights Watch has scarcely issued a report on Mexico without examining the failure of the government to respond adequately to human rights violations. Indeed, the theme of impunity runs throughout this report. However, as pervasive as the state’s negligence is, it would be incorrect to assert that no human rights violators are ever investigated, prosecuted, or brought to justice in Mexico. To understand how and why the system so routinely fails, therefore, we must also ascertain how, why, and to what extent the system sometimes works.

This chapter draws on five cases of torture, or torture combined with execution, that were submitted to Human Rights Watch by the PGR and four torture or execution cases submitted by Mexico’s Foreign Ministry, all of them provided in response to numerous Human Rights Watch requests for cases that these entities felt had been properly handled by authorities. It also reviews two cases investigated by nongovernmental human rights organizations in which police officers guilty of torture or extrajudicial execution have been brought to justice, and certain torture cases handled by the Mexico City Human Rights Commission (Comisión de Derechos Humanos del Distrito Federal, CDHDF), a governmental agency. In addition, it draws on cases analyzed in prior chapters of this report.

On numerous occasions during 1997 and 1998, Human Rights Watch solicited information from the Foreign Ministry and PGR regarding human rights cases they believed had been dealt with properly by authorities.0 Such information would permit Human Rights Watch to factor into its analysis the government’s response to frequent criticisms of impunity. After all, precisely at the time that Human Rights Watch was beginning field work for this report, the Foreign Ministry was arguing that there was no impunity for torture in Mexico.1

In response to the Human Rights Watch requests, the Foreign Ministry sent a package to Human Rights Watch in March 1998 that consisted only of a 1992 press release issued by the CNDH (regarding a case in which no action was taken against alleged torturers), a section on torture from the commission’s 1997 annual report, the Mexican Constitution, state and federal laws, and United Nations materials. After receiving the information, Human Rights Watch again solicited case-specific detail. On August 28, 1998, we received a package containing eleven cases culled from CNDH materials. Eight of the eleven did not relate to torture or other violent abuses committed by state agents, so we do not review them here.2 Of the three cases relevant to the Human Rights Watch request—regarding torture committed by police or soldiers—no official was actually in custody.

The PGR also prepared a report for Human Rights Watch that included statistics and information on five human rights cases.3 Four out of five came to the attention of the attorney general’s office through the CNDH, an indication of the commission’s importance as well as a sign that the PGR should develop better procedures for encouraging direct complaints and learning of cases on its own; as effective as the CNDH is on some cases, it cannot substitute for rapid action on human rights cases by the authorities who are initially responsible for handling them. Human Rights Watch notes that in none of the cases was a torturer serving a sentence. In one case, the accused fled, and in two others judges had yet to issue the requested arrest warrants. However, in two of the cases, torturers and two accomplices were in jail awaiting trial. Of the five cases documented below, the Rodríguez Tapia torture-murder deserves particular attention, because the PGR learned of the abuse through the press, not the CNDH, and within months had succeeded in putting the police officer who had tortured and killed Rodríguez Tapia behind bars while the case is being investigated.

Shades of Justice

Two fundamental measures of success in human rights cases are whether the officials responsible for torture, “disappearance,” or extrajudicial execution serve prison time, and whether the government compensates the victim. By these measures, Mexico’s record is exceedingly poor. At its rhetorical best, the Foreign Ministry argues that only eight people have been successfully prosecuted for torture, but the ministry does not even assert that those torturers are actually serving their sentences. In its most recent annual report, the CNDH noted that between May 1997 and May 1998 a total of thirty-nine public servants were indicted for human rights crimes based on commission recommendations, an increase over the twenty-eight documented in its prior annual report but a marked decrease from the 161, ninety-six, and seventy in years past.4 The commission, however, does not maintain statistics on the final outcome of the cases it documents, so no global figures regarding convictions are available.

Despite daunting obstacles, in rare cases prosecutors have obtained guilty sentences against torturers or authorities responsible for extrajudicial executions. In the Manríquez case, documented below, a Mexico City police officer who permitted a subordinate to torture was sentenced under the Federal Law to Prevent and Punish Torture, although he was released after paying a fine, rather than serving time in prison, and the accused torturer himself was freed on a technicality. The Garci Crespo case, also analyzed below, led to the sentencing of four Mexico City public security police officers for the victim’s extrajudicial execution.

Short of serving prison time, human rights violators may be detained during prosecutorial investigation or prior to sentencing, although these measures do not ensure ultimate punishment. Three federal police agents in cases described to Human Rights Watch by the PGR were arrested and jailed pending the outcome of their trial. It is far more common, however, for human rights abusers to have arrest warrants pending against them, to be at liberty while the subject of a half-hearted investigation, or not to be investigated at all.

It is insufficient for representatives of the executive branch of government to argue that their responsibility lies only in investigating charges of torture and, if warranted, indicting suspects. First, prosecutors control the speed and seriousness of their investigations, both of which frequently limit the success of prosecutions. Second, human rights violations and procedural errors—including the failure toadequately investigate allegations of torture or other irregularities—routinely go unpunished, meaning that public officials accept, and therefore encourage, such violations.

It is also insufficient for the Mexican government to be satisfied with partial steps toward justice in torture cases. Administrative actions against torturers or those who permit it may be taken in addition to criminal actions, but they cannot substitute for prosecution and punishment by time in prison. Similarly, the opening of a criminal investigation for torture is a positive step, but it does not satisfy international law requirements that torturers go to prison.

Overcoming Obstacles in Human Rights Cases

From the cases analyzed in this report, it is clear that time plays an important role in impunity in Mexico, because the justice system’s slowness in prosecuting perpetrators allows them to flee, valuable evidence is lost, or family members and human rights groups pushing for justice are forced to give up. In the Guadarrama case, for example, the officer responsible for the “disappearance” was able to watch without fear as the judicial process went nowhere; despite detailed information indicating that he was responsible, authorities did not act against him until Mexican and international human rights groups took up the case. When authorities finally indicted the suspect seven months after the “disappearance,” and long after sufficient evidence existed to move against him, the officer slipped away.

Given that so many torture victims in Mexico are themselves prosecuted, the passage of time also makes it more difficult to obtain valuable evidence in torture cases. If torture victims remain in jail or prison for extended periods of time, they may be subject to prolonged pressure to retract their complaints. Several cases in Oaxaca, documented above, appear to have followed this pattern. At the same time, if prosecutors delay in taking statements from torture victims while they are in jail, and thus easily accessible, they may find it difficult to do so if the victim is released, as happened in several EPR-related torture cases documented in the chapter on Oaxaca.

The results generated by Mexico City’s official human rights commission also highlight an important aspect of Mexico’s justice system: with the right pressure from the right government official, the system can be pushed to prosecute human rights violators. In one case followed by the commission, city prosecutors charged torturers with “abuse of authority,” a charge for which bail is available. When the commission’s president learned of the lesser charge, he urged prosecutors to amend the case to reflect that the victim had been tortured, and he eventually succeeded. By the time the charge had been changed, however, the suspects had fled.

The Sisyphian role of Mexican governmental and nongovernment human rights organizations in promoting justice for human rights violations is important to highlight. Human rights cases in Mexico usually follow a pattern: the authorities initially deny that any violation took place, even in the most blatant cases. This leaves human rights groups saddled with the responsibility of documenting the abuses the state ignores. Even then, when the authorities ignore even the most well-documented cases, human rights groups are burdened with creating public pressure in favor of prosecution.

The sheer number of abuses in Mexico, however, makes it impossible for human rights organizations to take action on all cases. First, prosecutors must be hounded to investigate. When proseucutors do not, human rights groups often find themselves gathering the information that would permit an indictment, locating witnesses, for instance, and bringing them to prosecutors. Second, organizations spend valuable time meeting with authorities to urge them to ensure that prosecutors act on the information they do have, or to request copies of case files that would allow them to evaluate progress. Third, working with the news media to stimulate public pressure on government officials is time-consuming, and human rights groups easily produce more information than journalists can cover.

Victims’ relatives also often play an important role in moving cases forward. In the Garci Crespo case, a family member worked full time for almost two years to persuade reluctant authorities to indict the police officers responsible for the extrajudicial execution of Garci Crespo. Those officers are now in prison, serving sentences. In Tamaulipas state, the parents of Juan Lorenzo Rodríguez Osuna have worked nationally and internationally on behalf of their son, traveling to Mexico City, sending expensive packages of materials to human rights organizations, and hiring private lawyers.

The inescapable conclusion of this chapter is that if the victim or the victim’s family has time, money, and education, it is more likely that a human rights violator will be punished or a wrongly prosecuted individual freed without charge. Years of fighting through the courts or the news media may be necessary to obtain even a partial victory, so only those willing and able to put in a long-haul fight can hope for such results. Hiring a private lawyer, being able to travel to Mexico City or other areas to promote the case, and understanding the local and foreign news media are the keys to having a realistic chance of success.

Cases Deemed Successful by the PGR

Torture and execution victim Rafael Toledo Nolasco

On December 3, 1995, Federal Judicial Police in Salina Cruz, Oaxaca, detained Rafael Toledo Nolasco, whom they accused of possession of illegal drugsand a weapon reserved for the exclusive use of the armed forces. They beat him so seriously during the detention and later at the attorney general’s office that he died a month later. Before he died, however, he was turned over to a federal prosecutor, charged, and transferred to a detention center. Prosecutors never questioned why he was in such a delicate state of health, and decided not to press charges against the officers.5 After the CNDH issued recommendation 106/96 on November 6, 1996, detailing the problems in the case, the PGR suspended for thirty days the prosecutor who failed to investigate Toledo Nolasco’s physical condition. They fired the prosecutors who decided not to press charges against the police, ordering that they be barred from working at the institution for ten years. The two police officers were fired and eventually charged with torture and murder. A judge issued arrest warrants for the men, but the former officers fled and remain at large.6

Extrajudicial execution victim José Soto Medina

On October 21, 1994, Federal Judicial Police agents illegally entered the home of José Soto Soto and Rosaura Medina Barajas, on the El Limoncito ranch, Apatzingán municipality, Michoacán state. They detained Soto Soto and his son Wulfrano Soto Medina, but executed another son, José Soto Medina. The police planted a gun on the victim and asserted that he had repeatedly shot at them before being killed himself. A CNDH examination of the body, however, showed that the victim was killed by a gunshot from between 25 and 35 centimeters away and that, before being shot, he had been beaten with what appeared to be a rifle butt. Based on this evidence, the commission concluded that José Soto Medina had been executed. Although police asserted they entered the home to serve an arrest warrant, no warrant for arrest or search was ever found. In a process plagued by irregularities, the prosecutors simply accepted the police version of events and decided not to prosecute the officers involved in the death of Soto Medina. In contrast, Soto Soto and Soto Medina were charged with drug and weapons violations. 7

A prosecutor who participated in the detention was eventually charged with “crimes against the administration of justice,” but an arrest warrant issued against him had not, according to the PGR’s information, been executed as of June 1998.The administrative investigation into one police official stalled but remains open, as the official absconded. Arrest warrants were solicited for seven other police officers, accused of “crimes against the administration of justice,” carrying out an illegal search, and violation of individual guarantees, but as of this writing a judge had not issued the warrants.8

Torture victim Donaciano Tapia Villalobos

On August 21, 1995, Federal Judicial Police agents detained Donaciano Tapia Villalobos and his brother-in-law, Victorino Jiménez Bera, in La Peñita de Jaltemba, Nayarit state. They were accused of possession of opium paste. According to Tapia Villalobos, the federal police transported him to the police station in the bed of a pickup truck, turning the muffler to face toward the bottom of the truck bed, stripping off his shirt, forcing him face down on the bed of the truck, and beating him on the back. Police reported that the detainee was burned when he voluntarily laid face down on the truck bed for the duration of the journey to the police station. The prosecutor to whom police delivered Tapia Villalobos failed to document the burns and bruises suffered by the detainee, and the medical examiner at the PGR documented only the burns, not the bruises. The statement initially made by Tapia Villalobos to the prosecutor was forced and later disavowed by the victim.9

After receiving a CNDH recommendation on February 20, 1997, the PGR conducted an administrative investigation that resulted in the firing of the two police officers responsible for transporting Tapia Villalobos to the station. One was prohibited from working for the force for five years and the other barred for ten.10 The prosecutor was fired, but the medical examiner faced no sanction. At the same time, one federal police officer was indicted on torture and abuse of authority charges and arrested on July 21, 1997. Two other officials were arrested for covering up the abuse.11

Torture victim Juan Antonio García Carrillo

Federal Judicial Police arbitrarily detained Juan Antonio García Carrillo on November 6, 1995, in Piedras Negras, Coahuila state, holding him incommunicadountil November 8. They beat him and threatened to puncture his testicles with syringes if he did not give the police the information they wanted. When the detainee asked for an explanation, he was hit in the right eye, causing blurred vision.12 The CNDH concluded that he was a victim of torture, since “there is proof that the wounds suffered by Juan Antonio García Carrillo in particular were maliciously produced by the arresting agents, not as a consequence of his detention, but with the intention to get him to confess to criminal acts he never committed.”13 The following day, police tried to force him to sign a false confession, providing him with a “person of confidence” who was not, in fact, of his own choosing. He, along with three other people, was accused of possession of heroin. Three of the four were indicted, but two of those, including García Carrillo, were eventually acquitted almost a year later. To his credit, the judge hearing the case refused to accept the testimony forcibly extracted from García Carrillo and the other detainees.14

Two police officers were indicted on abuse of authority charges, despite the fact that the CNDH had documented that torture had taken place. As of this writing, arrest warrants had not been issued; nor had the PGR finished administrative investigations into the officials who failed to act properly in the case: the prosecutor who charged the detainees based on fabricated evidence and failed to question the mistreatment they suffered; the detainees’ public defender; and medical personnel who failed to document the physical evidence of abuse.15

Torture-murder victim Agustín Rodríguez Tapia

Federal Judicial Police acting without a warrant or other legal cause detained Agustín Rodríguez Tapia on August 9, 1997, and took him to the PGR office in Mexicali, Baja California state. They beat him during the detention and again at the PGR office. As a result of the beatings, Rodríguez Tapia died.

The PGR informed Human Rights Watch that within hours of learning of the abuse through a newspaper account, an investigator was sent to check into the story.16 An investigation was opened on August 27, 1997, and three police officers were indicted a month later, one for murder, one for covering up the abuse, and allthree for abandoning a person in need.17 On October 26, 1997, a judge issued an arrest warrant for the officer charged with murder and abandonment, who was subsequently jailed. The judge denied the request for arrest warrants against the other two officers. The PGR also has administrative investigations pending against all three officers.

Cases Deemed Successful by the Foreign Ministry

Torture of José Pedro Luis Huerta Galiote

On January 27, 1992, agents of the Judicial Police of Puebla state arbitrarily detained José Pedro Luis Huerta Galiote, whom they accused of raping the son and daughter of the woman with whom he lived. Police held Huerta Galiote incommunicado until January 30, beating him and applying electrical current to his body, causing him to pass out several times. On one occasion when Huerta Galiote was passed out, police inserted a nail into his head.18 Medical personnel failed to take note of his physical condition.

In a series of indictments beginning in April of 1994, police, medical personnel, and prosecutors were charged with crimes ranging from abuse of authority and battery to crimes against the administration of justice. Several police officers and medical examiners were fired, but no public official was ever sentenced for the torture of Huerta Galiote or for failing to investigate or document the abuse properly. Huerta Galiote is serving a twenty-four-year sentence for rape.19

Torture of Omar Carreño Munóz, Luis Alberto Chávez Sarabia, Francisco Javier Reyes Guzmán, and José de Jesús López Bogarin in Sinaloa

On January 20, 1994, four inmates in a Mazatlán, Sinaloa state prison—Omar Carreño Munóz, Luis Alberto Chávez Sarabia, Francisco Javier Reyes Guzmán, and José de Jesús López Bogarin—were taken from their cell after allegedly taunting guards. They were kicked and beaten, then made to lie face down whileguards poured pails of cold water and rocks over their backs every five minutes for ninety minutes.20

In September 1995, a judge issued arrest warrants for six prison guards for the treatment received by the four prisoners in January of the prior year, but they were accused of abuse of authority and battery, not torture.21 The CNDH did not provide follow-up information indicating whether the arrest warrants were served.

Torture of Evangelina Arias de Bravo

After Octavio Bravo Arias allegedly stole money from the National Bank of the Army, Air Force and Navy (Banco Nacional del Ejército, Fuerza Aérea y Armada, or Banjército) in 1991, soldiers illegally detained the suspect’s mother, Evangelina Arias de Bravo, and forced her to sign a document promising to repay the money they said her son had stolen. She was held in Veracruz state between August 26 and September 3, 1991, and tortured psychologically. They told her that they had her grandchildren in custody and that they were going to force her pregnant daughter to abort her fetus. She signed the document, and Banjército used it to file a successful court case against her in which her house was seized in lieu of payment.22

Arias de Bravo filed a complaint with federal prosecutors, who turned the case over to the military, but military investigators failed to investigate thoroughly, lost the file, then closed the case without taking action against the soldiers who had forced her to sign the document.23

After the CNDH issued a recommendation, military prosecutors reopened the case and eventually informed the commission that three officers would be charged with torture for their role in the episode. A court eventually reversed the decision to seize Arias de Bravo’s home.24 The CNDH did not provide follow-up information regarding whether the officers were actually indicted.

Success and Failure in Two Cases Handled by NGOs

Eduardo Garci Crespo

On March 30, 1995, public security police officers killed Eduardo Torres Garci Crespo, a pilot with Mexicana airlines.25 The officers tried to detain the man in the early morning as he drove through Mexico City’s Roma neighborhood. Possibly fearing a robbery, the driver did not heed police calls to stop, so the officers, in four cars, followed Garci Crespo while firing their weapons. The police overtook Garci Crespo at this parents’ house, where one of the officers shot him between the eyes.26

Following the shooting, the officers repaired to a restaurant until, forty-five minutes later, they received a call related to the murder. They returned to the scene and pretended to investigate, interviewing witnesses and carrying the body to the funeral vehicle.27

On April 4, 1995, prosecutors announced that three of the four officers involved in the incident had been arrested; the man believed responsible for shooting Garci Crespo fled but was later captured. For the following year, however, the case progressed little, and the victim’s family complained of repeated irregularities, such as the inability of the victim’s legal representatives to present their side of the case in court, the refusal of authorities to provide the defense team with a copy of the case file, and, when the file was finally turned over, the fact that 600 of its 1,500 pages were illegible.28 A tape of the police communications during the chase subsequently disappeared.29

On September 2, a judge sentenced each of four former public security police officers to more than thirty-six years in prison for aggravated homicide and abuse of authority.30 The officer who had fled was found and included in the sentence.

Manuel Manríquez

Manuel Manríquez was detained in Mexico City on June 2, 1990, without an arrest warrant. Subjected to torture, he was forced to confess to a murder. The three courts that ended up hearing his case originally or on appeal accepted his torture-based confession and never questioned the lack of an arrest warrant or the case’s other procedural defects, such as the refusal of authorities to let the defendantattend all hearings related to the trial. According to a judge who eventually heard the torture case, Manríquez



was taken to the office of the Judicial Police of Iztapalapa Delegation, where they blindfolded him and interrogated him on several occasions, beating him to get him to confess to two homicides. . . . He was beaten day and night. The beatings were on all of his body, and they caused lesions inside his mouth. In addition they burned his testicles with lit cigarettes, and put “Peking chile” up his nose.31

Manríquez was found guilty of murder, based in part on his forced confession. The judge who first heard the case cited the confession in the sentence and argued that it was valid even if Manríquez had retracted it. To accept the forced confession, the judge cited the “principle of judicial immediacy,” whereby the first confession has more validity than others. On appeal, other courts also used this tortured confession.32

Almost five years after the detainee was tortured, Mexico City prosecutors charged two police agents—Fernando Pavón Delgado and José Luis Bañuelos Esquivel—with torture.33 On November 24, 1995, the agents were arrested. Bañuelos, the alleged perpetrator of the torture, appealed the arrest order on the grounds that a Mexico City prosecutor had filed charges under a federal law, the 1991 Law to Prevent and Punish Torture. On November 27, 1996, a judge ruled in favor of Bañuelos, ordering his immediate release, but noting that a federal prosecutor could still file charges. The federal prosecutor never filed the torture charge against Bañuelos. Six days earlier, a Mexico City judge handed Pavón, who had not appealed the arrest warrant, a two-year sentence.34 As Bañuelos’s superior, Pavón was found guilty of torture for having failed to prevent the abuse by turning the detainee over to prosecutors within the time period allowed by law. Police held Manríquez for five days. The judge allowed Pavón to substitute a fine for prison time.35

Meanwhile, the torture victim remains in prison. Shortly after the EPR carried out its first public, armed actions in 1996, authorities transferred the detainee to a maximum security prison, arguing that he was a member of the armed group. “There are reasons to believe that these inmates are part of the political organization called PROCUP-PDLP, which supports the activities of the EPR,” explained the Ministry of Government.36 After intense lobbying by human rights lawyers, Manríquez was returned to a Mexico City prison.

Human Rights Commission of the Federal District

Founded in 1994, Mexico City’s official Human Rights Commission of the Federal District functions analogously to the CNDH, but its attention is focused exclusively on Mexico City. Its recommendations, which consist of detailed case information and non-binding suggestions for action to be taken by Mexico City officials in human rights cases, have been relatively few in number but forceful and well-documented. They have also been effective in stimulating investigations into serious human rights violations, if not leading to sentences for human rights violators. According to Luis de la Barreda, the commission’s president, thirty-four city officials are under criminal investigation for torture at the time of this writing, following commission recommendations.37 One public servant has been sentenced to nine years and three months in prison, but is not serving his sentence because he fled.38 De la Barreda also notes that after the commission documented a case of torture that took place in a building housing offices of the city attorney general and judicial police, the prosecutor installed closed-circuit television monitors, in accordance with the commission’s recommendation.

The commission highlights one of the key assertions of this report—that with appropriate political will, torture cases can be moved through the system. On March 21, 1995, according to Federal District commission recommendation 12/95, guards at the Men’s Preventive Custody-South facility tortured Adrián Marcos Hernández, who had earlier that day refused a request from one of his torturers to relinquish a piece of clothing. According to the guard, the inmate had refused to obey an order to stop using the clothing to block the guards’ view of a visiting area. Later that day, the guard entered the man’s cell and, along with another prison employee, brought him to a staff doctor. The doctor examined the man anddetermined that he had not been beaten. From there, they brought him to a room in another building, where he was beaten by two guards, including the one who had tried to take his clothing. The following day, a fellow inmate brought the victim to a staff doctor, who gave him pills for the pain but refused to fill out a report on the incident. On March 25, a staff doctor finally conducted a medical exam on the victim, but only after the commission intervened.39

City prosecutors charged the guards with abuse of authority, not torture, prompting the commission’s president to write to the city attorney general to urge that the case be reviewed and that prosecutors charge the guards with torture. “By issuing charges of abuse of authority—which carries a low penalty—and not with torture—which is severely punished, in accord with the seriousness of the criminal act—the opportunity is lost to give the mentioned abuse of authority the just punishment that it deserves.”40 In response, the city broadened the charges to include torture.41 But even so, the system showed its weakness. When the charge was changed to torture, the prison guards fled.

0 Human Rights Watch meeting, Armando Alfonzo, personal secretary to Attorney General Jorge Madrazo, September 1, 1997; letter to Armando Alfonzo, September 9, 1997; Human Rights Watch meeting, Attorney General Madrazo, January 26, 1998; letter to Attorney General Madrazo, February 14, 1998; Human Rights Watch meeting, Ambassador Aida González, technical secretary of the Foreign Ministry’s Interministerial Commission for Attention to Mexico’s International Human Rights Commitments, and María Amparo Canto, the commission’s congressional liaison, January 20, 1998; letter to María Amparo Canto, February 8, 1998; letter to María Amparo Canto, March 13, 1998; and Human Rights Watch meeting, María Amparo Canto, June 5, 1998. 1 Foreign Ministry, press release 142, May 9, 1997. 2 One of the eight cases involved a murderer who had been wrongly released from prison. He was not a government employee, however. 3 Office of the Federal Attorney General, “Resultados obtenidos por la Procuraduría General de la República en materia de lucha contra la impunidad y de los trabajos de la CNDH,” document prepared for Human Rights Watch, June 1998. The five selected cases were not presented as the only successfully resolved cases but rather as examples of the types of success achieved by the Office of the Federal Attorney General. In discussing the office’s report with Human Rights Watch, the office’s director of internal affairs stressed that during 1997 more public servants were fired than fined, the opposite of 1996 and an indication of what he said was an improvement in the quality of sanctions imposed on office employees. He also pointed out that since December 1996, when Jorge Madrazo took over as attorney general, they had given 184 human rights courses to 8,682 people.

4 National Human Rights Commission, Informe anual mayo 1997-mayo 1998, p. 681; Informe anual mayo 1996-mayo 1997, p. 623; Informe anual mayo 1995-mayo 1996, p. 577; Informe anual mayo 1994-mayo 1995, p. 579; Informe anual mayo 1993-mayo 1994, p. 681.

5 National Human Rights Commission, Recommendation 106/96, in Gaceta 76 (Mexico City: Comisión Nacional de Derechos Humanos, November 1996).

6 Office of the Federal Attorney General, “Resultados obtenidos.”

7 National Human Rights Commission, Recommendation 112/96, in Gaceta 76 (Mexico City: Comisión Nacional de Derechos Humanos, November 1996), pp. 239-40, 246, and 247.

8 Office of the Federal Attorney General, “Resultados obtenidos.”

9 National Human Rights Commission, Recommendation 4/97, in Gaceta 79 (Mexico City: Comisión Nacional de Derechos Humanos, February 1996), pp. 61-64 and 71.

10 Office of the Federal Attorney General, “Resultados obtenidos.”

11 Office of the Federal Attorney General, “Resultados obtenidos.”

12 National Human Rights Commission, Recommendation 69/97, in Gaceta 84 (Mexico City: Comisión Nacional de Derechos Humanos, July 1997, p. 254.

13 Ibid., p. 267. Translation by Human Rights Watch.

14 Ibid., pp. 260 and 262.

15 Office of the Federal Attorney General, “Resultados obtenidos.”

16 Human Rights Watch interview, Eduardo López Figueroa, director, internal affairs, Office of the Federal Attorney General, Mexico City, June 12, 1998.

17 Office of the Federal Attorney General, “Resultados obtenidos.”

18 National Human Rights Commission, Recommendation 145/92, in Gaceta 26 (Mexico City: Comisión Nacional de Derechos Humanos, September 1992), pp. 118-49.

19 National Human Rights Commission, Coordinating Office for Follow-up on Recommendations (Coordinación de Seguimiento de Recomendaciones), “Recomendación 145/92, 12/Ago/92, Puebla,” no date, pp. 4, 14-15. Document sent to Human Rights Watch by Mexico’s Foreign Ministry on August 28, 1998.

20 National Human Rights Commission, Recommendation 47/94, in Gaceta 46 (Mexico City: Comisión Nacional de Derechos Humanos, May 1994), p. 25.

21 National Human Rights Commission, Coordinating Office for Follow-up on Recommendations, “Recomendación 047/94, 30/Mar/94, Sinaloa,” no date, p. 11. Document sent to Human Rights Watch by Mexico’s Foreign Ministry on August 28, 1998.

22 National Human Rights Commission, Recommendation 114/96, in Gaceta 76 (Mexico City: Comisión Nacional de Derechos Humanos, November 1996), pp. 263-64.

23 Ibid.

24 National Human Rights Commission, Coordinating Office for Follow-up on Recommendations, “Recomendación 114/96, 15/Nov./96, Federal,” no date, p. 8. Document sent to Human Rights Watch by Mexico’s Foreign Ministry on August 28, 1998.

25 Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez Human Rights Center, press release, September 3, 1996.

26 Ibid.

27 Ibid.

28 Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez Human Rights Center, press release, no date.

29 Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez Human Rights Center, press release, September 3, 1996.

30 Ibid.

31 Sentencia, Causa Penal 112/95, Juez Décimo Segundo de Distrito en Material Penal en el Distrito Federal, November 21, 1996, pp. 66-67.

32 Center for Justice and International Law, legal brief filed before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, May 22, 1996, p. 2.

33 AP 50/ACI/245/94-03 and SC/11982/92. Juzgado Sexagésimo Tercero de lo Penal del Distrito Federal, Causa 175/95.

34 Resolución, Toca Penal No. 11/96-I, pp. 7-8.

35 Ibid.

36 Government Ministry, press release 278/96, September 6, 1996.

37 Human Rights Commission of the Federal District, “Un refugio probado,” April 21, 1998, p. 6.

38 Human Rights Commission of the Federal District, document given to Human Rights Watch on September 8, 1997.

39 Human Rights Commission of the Federal District, Recommendation 12/95, September 4, 1995, mimeo, pp. 7-8, 15, and 22-23.

40 Luis de la Barreda Solórzano, letter to then-Attorney General José Antonio González Fernández, January 12, 1996.

41 Armando Victoria Santamaría, Procuraduría General de Justicia del Distrito Federal, March 28, 1996.

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