| | |  News Around the Republic of Mexico | December 2008 
Mexico in Raging Drug War Tightens Police Powers
 Miguel Angel Gutierrez - Reuters
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| | Drug gang violence has killed nearly 5,400 people this year, more than twice the number killed in 2007. | |
Mexico City – Mexico's Congress passed a packet of laws on Tuesday to give police and prosecutors more powers to put suspected drug smugglers and kidnappers behind bars as the country grapples with spiraling cartel violence.
The legislation, mainly secondary laws that complement reforms passed in March, should improve coordination between the federal and state governments and introduce controls on police recruitment to reduce infiltration by drug gangs.
"They are extra weapons, in the figurative sense, judicial tools ... that will simplify the paperwork involved in criminal cases," said opposition congressman Cesar Camacho of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which widely backed the laws as did opposition leftists.
Camacho said the reforms would respect people's rights while also stopping guilty criminals slipping through the net.
Drug gang violence has killed nearly 5,400 people this year, more than twice the number killed in 2007, as cartels lash back against conservative President Felipe Calderon's army-led drug war and fight each other over smuggling turf.
Police corruption runs all the way up from street level, and a number of senior officers -- including the head of the special organized crime investigation unit, SIEDO -- have been arrested on suspicion of selling information to cartels.
Mexicans are also bitterly angry at a surge in kidnappings which often end up with the victim being murdered irrespective of whether a ransom was paid and which are rarely ever solved.
The governor of the northern state of Coahuila is even pushing for a national debate on bringing back the death penalty for kidnappers who kill their victims.
The reforms passed this year will make it easier for prosecutors to order police raids and will mean organized crime suspects can be held for up to 80 days without formal charges.
One of the laws will set up a national register of cell phone users to try and clamp down on criminals who use phones to extort money or negotiate kidnap ransoms. Most of Mexico's 80 million cell phones are prepaid handsets that can be bought without showing any identification.
Kidnapping gangs often work for drug cartels, with ransoms providing easy cashflow.
(Writing by Catherine Bremer, Editing by Anthony Boadle) |
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