| | |  News Around the Republic of Mexico | June 2009 
Federal Prosecutors Take Over Fire Probe in Mexico
 E. Eduardo Castillo - Associated Press
go to original
June 25, 2009
| | Mexico's Interior Secretary Fernando Gomez Mont gestures during a news conference in Mexico City, Wednesday, June 24, 2009. Gomez talked about the searching for nine officials wanted in a day care fire that killed 47 children in northern Mexico, two days after nine others were arrested on negligent homicide charges. (AP/Eduardo Verdugo) | |
Mexico City – Mexico's government on Wednesday took over the entire investigation into a fire at a day care center that killed 47 children, citing squabbling between state and federal officials over the probe.
Interior Secretary Fernando Gomez Mont said the federal action was meant to prevent the case from being politicized.
"Today the attorney general's office has taken over the investigation so that there are no doubts about it and to avoid any political disputes," Gomez Mont said.
The June 5 blaze in Hermosillo began in a Sonora state government warehouse and spread to an adjacent federally funded day care center. Officials say the fire may have started with a short circuit or overheating in the air conditioning system in the warehouse, which lacked fire alarms and extinguishers.
The tragedy shocked Mexicans and provoked finger-pointing between federal and state authorities.
Gomez Mont, a member of President Felipe Calderon's National Action Party, made his announcement a day after Sonora Gov. Eduardo Bours of the opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party said a lawsuit against the state by federal officials was a "smoke screen" to deflect blame from the federal government.
The privately run center cared for children under a contract from the federal Social Security Institute. The agency's director, Daniel Karam, said Sunday that it would file a civil lawsuit charging negligence by the day care center's owners and the state Finance Department, which rented the adjacent warehouse.
Federal and state prosecutors had been conducting separate investigations, which earlier this week led to the arrests of seven state and two federal officials on negligent homicide charges. Those arrested were low-level employees with the state Finance Department and officials in the Social Security Institute's Sonora office.
Federal Attorney General Eduardo Medina-Mora said Wednesday that only one of those remained in jail. The others were freed on bail or by an injunction from a judge. |
|
| |
Vallarta Weddings
Tell a Friend
Site Map
Print this Page
Email Us