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 Editorials | Issues | March 2007 
Ochoa Slain, Family Insists
 Kelly Arthur Garrett - Herald Mexico
| | Digna Ochoa |
Family members of Digna Ochoa, the human rights lawyer found dead in her Mexico City office in October of 2001, said Wednesday that a new investigation of her death must start with the presumption that she was murdered.
"For us, it´s clear that there was a homicide," said José Antonio Becerril, lawyer for Digna Ochoa´s family. "That implies the original investigation was not handled properly."
As an attorney, Ochoa represented activists and investigated human rights abuses involving government officials. She had been kidnapped no fewer than three times before her death, and took temporary refuge in the United States, where actor Martin Sheen presented her with an award from Amnesty International.
The next year she was found dead with two bullet wounds, one to the head. In 2003, Mexico City´s attorney general´s office (PGJDF) dropped its investigation, insisting Ochoa´s death was a suicide.
That decision outraged human rights workers in Mexico and the United States, and was never accepted by Ochoa´s family. On behalf of the family, Becerril presented to city authorities 400 pages of forensic evidence suggesting she was murdered, but the evidence was never accepted and the suicide conclusion stayed in effect.
On Monday, however, city Attorney General Rodolfo Félix Cárdenas announced that the case would be re-opened, citing insufficient evidence of suicide.
Francisco Coronado Franco, an assistant prosecutor for human rights-related cases, will head the investigation.
The decision was immediately lauded by Mexico City human rights leaders, including Federal District Human Rights Commission president Emilio Álvarez Icaza. "The city attorney general has come out in favor of public opinion in re-opening this investigation in order to find a position of certainty," Álvarez Icaza said. "My understanding is that he hasn´t come out in favor of either hypothesis (murder or suicide) at this point, which is very positive."
Becerril said at a news conference with four Ochoa family members Wednesday that he understood the chief prosecutor´s point of view, but that the evidence of murder is too strong to be treated as one of two equal hypotheses.
Jesús Ochoa, Digna´s brother, agreed. "Nothing matters more than justice," he said. "There has been a crime and both the material author and intellectual author must be punished." |
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