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V. RECOMMENDATIONS

The president should instruct the attorney general to take steps to strengthen the ability of the Special Prosecutor’s Office to handle its large and difficult caseload. Specifically, the attorney general should:

• Assign more prosecutors, investigators, and administrative personnel to the office;

• Designate a special team of forensic experts and provide forensic equipment to the office;

• Designate a special team of police investigators that works exclusively with the office and under the orders of the special prosecutor;

• Provide more extensive training to the office’s prosecutors and investigators, as well as to the police investigators assign to work with them;

• Conduct a thorough audit and assessment of the resource allocation within the office.

The president should instruct the interior minister to take steps to promote greater access to the government archives that contain information about past abuses. Specifically, the Interior Ministry should:

• Provide the Special Prosecutor’s Office and independent researchers with indexes and catalogues of the contents of the relevant archives;

• Develop a more precise and limited definition of what constitutes “private” information off limits to independent investigators;

• Redesign the procedure for obtaining archived files so that the responsibility for the release of information does not rest with a single person (or small number of people).

The president should instruct the minister of defense to take steps to ensure that the PGJM provides full support to the Special Prosecutor’s Office. Specifically, the defense minister should:

• Order the PGJM o do all it can to locate documents and information requested by the special prosecutor;

• Order the PGJM to cede jurisdiction over the cases under investigation by the special prosecutor.

The president should take steps to help the special prosecutor address the legal hurdles it faces in prosecuting the cases under investigation. Specifically, he should:

• Convene a task force or commission consisting of distinguished jurists, as well as representatives of key institutions of the state, that would work to generate greater clarity and consensus about the nature of the legal hurdles and to assess the advantages and disadvantages of strategies that the special prosecutor’s office might adopt to overcome them.

The government should consider taking additional measures to reinforce work of the Special Prosecutor’s Office. Specifically, it should:

• Consider legislative measures that would strengthen the investigative powers of the special prosecutor—by, for instance, allowing prosecutors to reduce the sentences of minor offenders who provide information that substantially advances the investigation and prosecution of human rights crimes.

• Develop a program to systematize and disseminate the findings of the investigations to victims, victims’ relatives, and the Mexican public generally—including the publication of a comprehensive report on the history of “dirty war” abuses, prepared by the Special Prosecutor’s Office, its “Support Committee,” or an independent “truth commission.”