| | |  News Around the Republic of Mexico 
Mexico Makes First Arrest in Migrant Murder Case
 Xinhua
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August 31, 2010
| | Migrants from Guatemala and El Salvador cover their faces with paper masks before a silent march in honor of the 72 dead migrants in Saltillo, Mexican state of Coahuila August 28, 2010. (Xinhua/Reuters) | |
Mexico's Attorney General's Office has put a suspect under house arrest following the murder of 72 migrants in northern Mexico last week, the first arrest made about the massacre, a spokesperson said on Monday.
The office had put Eduardo Rico Perez under house arrest for 40 days, said the Attorney General's Office spokeswoman Viviana Macias. The suspect had tried to argue that he was a minor, but medical tests showed later that he was at least 18 years old.
Macias said the investigation will continue and more arrests may be expected, but she declined to comment on details of the police investigation undertaken.
Also on Monday, local media reported that the massacre's sole witness, an 18-year-old Ecuadorian citizen Luis Freddy Lala Pomavilla who was badly wounded in the attack, had flown home in the company of senior Ecuadorian officials.
Mexico's navy and regional police found 72 dead migrants - 58 men and 14 women - on Aug. 24 at a ranch about 160 km from Tamaulipas, a Gulf coast state bordering Texas of the United States.
So far 37 of the dead have remained unidentified as they lacked papers. Those who have been identified were 16 Hondurans, 13 Salvadoreans, five Guatemalans and a Brazilian.
The victims of the deadliest drug cartel massacre to date in Mexico were believed to have been gunned down by the Zetas drug gang after refusing to smuggle drugs
The Zetas were founded by former Mexican army special forces soldiers and have become a lethal drug gang that has been notorious for extorting migrants.
The cartel controls much of Tamaulipas, the last leg for migrants running the challenge up the Gulf coast to Texas.
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