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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | December 2006 
Report: Mexico's Ex-President Ordered Protesters Slain
 E. Eduardo Castillo - Associated Press
| | Newspaper says Echeverria's arrest was based on official accounts of deaths of up to 350 students. |
Mexico City - The judge who ordered the recent arrest of former President Luis Echeverria had determined that there was probable cause to believe he was directly linked to the 1968 deaths of student protesters, according to a federal court report published this week.
The report - published by El Universal newspaper and confirmed by Echeverria's attorney - details the findings on which Judge Ricardo Paredes based his decision to start the trial process against the ailing 84-year-old Echeverria, who has been under house arrest and has denied any wrongdoing.
Decades-old official reports said 25 people were killed when gunmen opened fire on a huge student demonstration in Mexico City's Tlatelolco plaza shortly before the 1968 Olympic Games. Human rights activists, however, say as many as 350 people were killed.
According to the report published Tuesday, then-President Gustavo Diaz Ordaz and other high-ranking officials participated in planning the attack to undermine the opposition.
But it said Echeverria - then interior secretary - apparently gave the order without any justification or threat against national security.
The report said the nation's leaders aimed to destroy a "national group" of dissent that included the student movement.
Echeverria's lawyer, Juan Velazquez, confirmed the contents of the document but said there was no proof that Echeverria orchestrated the massacre and insisted the protesters were killed in the crossfire from "sharpshooters and authorities."
Echeverria, who was president from 1970 to 1976, is the only former Mexican leader to face criminal charges. A special prosecutor's office initiated the criminal case in 2001. |
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