| | |  News Around the Republic of Mexico | August 2009 
Mexico Prosecutors Detain, Free Drug Lord's Mother
 Mark Stevenson - Associated Press
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August 20, 2009
| | Servando "La Tuta" Gomez | |
Mexico City — Mexican prosecutors released the mother of reputed La Familia drug cartel leader Servando "La Tuta" Gomez on Wednesday after detaining her for two days despite his threat to retaliate against police if they bother his family.
Maria Teresa Martinez was questioned and released "for lack of evidence" following her detention Monday on suspicion of involvement in the cartel. The Attorney General's Office did not specify her suspected role. Gomez's brother, Luis Felipe Gomez Martinez, was also detained and will be held two more days for investigation, the office said in a statement.
Experts questioned how successful the tactic of detaining traffickers' family members could be in light of the cartel's history of violence and support among local populations in rural areas where they operate.
The Michoacan-based La Familia cartel has been blamed for bloody attacks on police and in the past has reacted violently to arrests of its members.
In July, within minutes of the arrest of the La Familia operations chief, the gang staged deadly attacks across Michoacan, President Felipe Calderon's home state. In the worst attack, 12 federal agents were slain and their tortured bodies piled along a roadside as a warning for all to see.
In a telephone interview with local media last month, Servando Gomez suggested he was ready to make a deal with the government, but complained bitterly that authorities were harassing his friends and family.
"Any friend, a relative, even anybody we visit, is considered an accomplice and is put into jail," Gomez said. He continued with a threat: "If anybody attacks my father, my mother my brothers, they're going to have to deal with me."
A human rights complaint was filed Wednesday against this week's detentions in Gomez's home state of Michoacan, though officials refused to say who filed it or whether the detention of Gomez's mother was listed in the complaint.
Analysts questioned how effective the tactic of detaining a cartel leader's family members would be.
Javier Oliva, a political scientist at Mexico's National Autonomous University, said the decision to detain family members appears normal given the circumstances. "In these kind of criminal circles, as opposed to more sophisticated ones, the family network plays a very important role in covering for suspects and providing logistical support."
But Oliva said tactics such as going after relatives or friends of traffickers are of limited value, given the lack of jobs or government programs in rural areas, where "the drug traffickers gain the support of the local population by injecting money" into the local economy.
A former top anti-drug prosecutor, Samuel Gonzalez, said authorities were "grasping at straws" by detaining Gomez's mother.
"This thing with detaining family members is at the borderline ... of illegality, it has serious human rights implications," Gonzalez said.
Prosecutors are clearly facing tough challenges in Michoacan, where La Familia controls illicit trades ranging from drug trafficking and methamphetamine production to kidnapping and extortion.
Many residents of Arteaga, Gomez's hometown in Michoacan, have a high opinion of him, saying he gives money to people who were sick or facing financial emergencies. The town has been bracketed by police and army checkpoints, and some residents complain of abuses and thefts by police during searches.
At the same time, the cartel has made Michoacan one of the epicenters of drug violence that has claimed more than 11,000 lives across Mexico since Calderon took office in late 2006.
In neighboring Guerrero state, gunmen opened fire Wednesday on the car of two state police officers who were patrolling in the city of Chilpancingo, authorities said. The Guerrero public security department said one of officer was killed and the other wounded.
Sometimes, both traffickers and police have hard time keeping their families out of the drug war.
On Wednesday, the police chief of a northeastern Mexican town acknowledged that a women detained in the company of drug suspects following a shootout between soldiers and gunmen Monday is his daughter.
Amador Medina Trevino, police chief of Apodaca, a suburb of Monterrey, said he hadn't seen his out-of-wedlock daughter in several years, but expressed embarrassment. "I don't know where to hide," he said. |
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