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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | July 2005 
Court Refuses To Issue Arrest Warrant For Former President Accused Of Genocide
 E. Eduardo Castillo - Associated Press
| | Former President Luis Echeverria (Photo: Daniel Aguilar/Reuters) |
Mexico City – A Mexican court has refused to issue an arrest warrant for a former Mexican president accused of genocide in the 1971 killings of student protesters, a prosecutor's spokesman said Tuesday.
The decision was the latest blow to the government's efforts to build a case against former President Luis Echeverria for his alleged role in the June 10, 1971, killings – known as the Corpus Christi massacre – in Mexico City.
The former president's lawyer, Juan Velazquez, said the court ruled that the killings of about a dozen protesters did not constitute genocide.
"As regrettable as the events of June 10, 1971 were, and as much as they should not have happened ... there was no genocide," Velazquez said.
The court also refused to issue a warrant against Echeverria's former interior secretary, Mario Moya.
"The prosecutor's office is evaluating the ruling, in order to make a formal statement later," said Eduardo Maldonado, a spokesman for the office of the special prosecutor appointed by President Vicente Fox to look into political crimes from the 1960s and 1970s.
The case against Echeverria, who governed Mexico from 1970-76, has hinged on the question of whether the killing of protesters could be construed as genocide.
In June, Mexico's Supreme Court ruled that, for technical reasons, a 30-year statute of limitations had not expired, but left it to a lower court to decide whether to hold Echeverria over for trial on the charges.
The other question centers on whether there is any evidence Echeverria personally ordered stick- and gun-wielding pro-government thugs to attack the protest march.
Prosecution files say Echeverria helped draw up elaborate plans to attack anti-government activists.
A failure to prosecute Echeverria would be seen as a serious setback for efforts to win justice in cases from Mexico's so-called Dirty War. Many Mexicans also believe Echeverria played a role in a much larger massacre of students in Mexico City's Tlatelolco Square in 1968, when he served as interior minister.
Echeverria, who governed Mexico from 1970-76, has denied involvement in both attacks.
"That's the end of that," Velazquez said, referring to several years of efforts to bring Echeverria to trial. "To me, it seems this will also spell the end to the Oct. 2, 1968, issue, because on that occasion there was a clash between sharpshooters and authorities, and there were several deaths. It would be silly to bring charges in that case, and if they are brought on the same grounds, they will fail."
Because authorities tried to cover up both massacres, no reliable estimate of victims have been compiled, but estimates on those killed in Tlatelolco square range from 38 to more than 200.
The government's effort to weed out alleged members of guerrilla groups and sympathizers began in earnest in the 1960s. The National Human Rights Commission has documented the disappearance of at least 275 suspected rebels.
Fox Laments Ruling On Former President
El Universal
Official spokesman Rubén Aguilar on Wednesday said President Vicente Fox "doesn't feel defeated" by a court ruling throwing out genocide charges against former President Luis Echeverría and his Interior Secretary Mario Moya Palencia.
The case presented by the special prosecutor for past crimes "proves from our point of view the guilt of the actors involved in these lamentable acts," Aguilar said. "We've done our job, but we can't influence the judicial branch." |
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