Mexico-Ayotzinapa: Court Rules Charges of Forced Disappearance Can't Be Sustained Because Students Weren't "Concealed" for Extended Time

Posted by DD Republished from Mexico Voices

La Jornada: Alfredo Méndez

 

  The PGR [Attorney General's Office] recently was denied by federal courts from bringing the charge of forced disappearance against José Lus Abarca, then mayor of the municipality of Iguala and his wife, María de los Ángeles Pineda Villa in regard to the disappearance of the 43 Ayotzinapa students in that city in Guerrero in September 2014.

According to officials with the Federal Judiciary who asked not to be named, proving the federal crime of enforced disappearance of a person is becoming a real challenge for the Attorney General's Office (PGR). The judges explained to La Jornada that the problem for prosecutors is that forced disappearance is a "kind of crime" that involves a very specific legal technique: that is, complete proof of three requirements:

 María de los Ángeles Pineda Villa and her husband José Lus Abarca

• Concealment of the victims for an extended time;
• Refusal by the accused [suspect] to give reliable information about the victims' whereabouts; and that
• Civilians involved take advantage of the support of [government] officials.

The three conditions imposed by this specific crime are, moreover, indivisible, such that in the absence of any one, the criminal act is not proved.

In May, following such arguments, the Second Unitary [Appellate] Criminal Court of Tamaulipas rejected issuing an arrest warrant for enforced disappearance against 56 defendants, including the former mayor and his wife, municipal police from Iguala and Cocula, and alleged members of the Guerreros Unidos [Warriors United] criminal gang.  This was the second legal petition by the PGR, which is therefore not subject to further appeal.

According to the point of view of this Unitary Court (comprised of one federal judge), the PGR was not able to prove that the 56 suspects accused of the crime had hidden the 43 students, which is one of the three elements of the crime of enforced disappearance.

Inasmuch as that requirement was not met, the court did not proceed to analyze the other two requirements [suspect's refusal to give information; involved civilians taking benefit of official support].

The judge's decision indicates:

"The legal nature of the crime of enforced disappearance is different from other types of criminal attacks on personal freedom, as it penalizes the repressive actions of a governmental nature against civil society, which results not only in the deprivation of freedom one or more individuals, but predominantly in their concealment under arrest." [Emphasis added.]

The decision adds

"similarly, the procedural evidence points out that the victims (43 student teachers) were not held in concealment; to the contrary, they were detained, deprived of their liberty and transported to where they were summarily executed."

In the same judicial decision, it is mentioned that the crime of enforced disappearance has a repressive purpose, which implies extensive deprivation of liberty over days, weeks or months, which in the case of the Ayotzinapa students did not happen because, the Unitary Court ruled,

"the documents submitted for the proceedings indicate that the students were most likely killed hours after their arrest."

This decision by the Unitary Court is final for the Office of the Attorney General [i.e., it cannot be appealed].

the happy couple