TWO Trailers Full of Bodies in Jalisco: The State Washes its Hands

Translated by Yaqui for Borderland Beat from: Excelsior

               The saga of truck filled with bodies of homicide victims sparks scandal in Mexico
                                        Thanks to Mica for this photo from social media

Extra Material from: El Sol , thanks to Neal in Nevada

It is not one, they are two trucks that move about Jalisco with 300 bodies: there is a second trailer "of death" rented for 80 bodies.

Given the lack of space to shelter bodies in the Jalisco Institute of Forensic Sciences, the  former director said that there are two refrigerated containers used by the Prosecutor's Office for the "protection" of some 300 bodies.

In Mexico, officials and citizens routinely announce the discoveries of clandestine graves baring skeletal remains from the gang violence that has convulsed the country for years. 

The official count of the “disappeared” nationwide exceeds 30,000, and relatives of the legions of missing call that a low-ball estimate. 

But the macabre saga of a roving government-contracted truck ferrying the corpses of scores of apparent murder victims from one town to the next in western Jalisco state has added a bizarre new twist to Mexico’s violent narrative. 

                    Abandoned: Jalisco Prosecutor's Office second trailer with about 100 corpses

The episode has become a major embarrassment for Jalisco authorities, who have been in a blame-shifting mode since word emerged last weekend, in the midst of national Independence Day celebrations. (El Grito)

Given the lack of space to shelter bodies in the Jalisco Institute of Forensic Sciences, the former director said that there are two refrigerated containers used by the Prosecutor's Office for the protection of some 300 bodies.

The Central Prosecutor's Office recognized a second trailer already rented with capacity for another 80 bodies, as long as there is no  solution found to deposit such a quantity of corpses that grows daily, only from Friday to Monday in 30 more bodies.

In consultation conducted by El Occidental with several companies dedicated to the rental of this type of units only the hitch of the truck to the box has a cost of 3,000 pesos and from there the cost is from 3 to 5,000 pesos daily, as long as the unit is required to be stopped and refrigerated. The costs increase when the unit has to move or take a travel route.

As for the first unit, which has 157 bodies, today it is known that it was the central prosecutor Rafael Castellanos -in times when the general prosecutor was Eduardo Almaguer- who rented the trailer with cold room since June 2016.

This, at a cost of 3,000 pesos a day of rent and including fuel, yields more than 2,000,200 thousand pesos, spent so far  in a span of two years. This is not including the private warehouses where it was deposited.

Refrigeration specialists consulted in this regard commented that a box that provides this type of service, with a prolonged operation, with a single charge, implies risks of bacteria and therefore, upon completion of the service, the box will have to be dismantled. The cost of a box is 429,500 to 500,000  pesos.

They dismiss director of Semefo, accused of omission in Jalisco:

The ex-director of the Jalisco Institute of Forensic Sciences (IJCF) Luis Octavio Cotero revealed today that the refrigeration container that was abandoned with 157 corpses in Guadalajara is not the only one, but there is a second trailer and that in total they would total about 300 bodies .

According to information from the now former director of the Jalisco Institute of Forensic Sciences, Luis Octavio Cotero Bernal, there are about 444 bodies that remain unidentified.

This vehicle is located in the facilities of the IJCF, unlike the refrigeration trailer that was abandoned twice in the municipalities of Tlaquepaque and Tlajomulco.

Cotero said that with his dismissal the ''state government washed his hands'' to avoid facing its obligation and said that the prosecution has not been concerned to define a protocol for the treatment and protection of the bodies. 

Cotero said that in both trucks there are up to 300 bodies , since the Semefo does not have the capacity to protect them, due to the increase in violence in the entity.

"They are in the trailers, one is the one that was shown in the media and another one that was hired by the prosecution because we do not have the resources to contract that type of service, nor the warehouse where they were; not my knowledge, nor information, " he said.

Ex-director of Semefo in Jalisco denies responsibility for moving corpses:

The former state official announced that to date there are 444 bodies of deceased persons waiting to be identified or buried in the Forensic Medical Service , so the IJCF made an effort to keep up to 144 of them, while the rest were confined in both container trucks.

"The capacity of the refrigerators is 72, but they have 144 because they had to force the capacity a little; there is too much demand for attention to these bodies, " Cotero said.

Seeing that the "bodies were decomposing, the prosecution had the need to hire for two years that first refrigerator truck ", which initially contained 200 bodies, although they had identified a hundred.

The first refrigerator truck, which was officially in the custody of the state forensic body, was abandoned in the municipality of Tlaquepaque and then moved to Tlajomulco until Saturday  where it was placed under the protection of the Jalisco prosecutor's office.

Luis Cotero Bernal discounted any responsibility for the abandonment of those bodies and accused the prosecution and the state government of not doing what was necessary so that the corpses are preserved in adequate refrigerators or buried in a forensic cemetery .

It was looking for a place to decently bury  the bodies once a cemetery was built, but to date the work is suspended and  we do not have a place to build, " said the former official.

He asserted that with his dismissal the " state government washed its hands " to avoid facing his obligation and assured that the prosecution has not been concerned to define a protocol for their treatment and protection.

According to statistics from the IJCF, up to July 2018 there had been 552 recorded murders, and there are currently some 3,000 people in the capacity of missing persons.

HERE IS THE FULL REPORT:
           

The ex-director of the Jalisco Institute of Forensic Sciences (IJCF) Luis Octavio Cotero revealed today that the refrigeration container that was abandoned with 157 corpses in Guadalajara is not the only one, but there is a second trailer and that in total they would total about 300 bodies . This vehicle is located in the facilities of the IJCF, unlike the refrigeration trailer that was abandoned twice in the municipalities of Tlaquepaque and Tlajomulco.

In the absence of a forensic cemetery and the saturation of the Semefo, the truck with 157 bodies was wandering the streets for six weeks awaiting the building of the cemetery where they would be buried. 

The ex-director of the Jalisco Institute of Forensic Sciences, Luis Octavio Cotero Bernal , repeatedly denied that the transfer of 157 bodies in a trailer was his responsibility, since the Public Ministry is the body that handles unclaimed bodies ; and that, two years ago, the Office of the Prosecutor made the decision to rent the vehicle before the saturation of Semefo, which works at 200 percent of its capacity .

This was expressed by Cotero Bernal in an interview with Pascal Beltrán del Río for Imagen Radio , adding that he was only an "instrument to deceive society" , because he has no responsibility, faculties, or budget to dispose of the corpses and their transfer .

So with that vehemence with which the governor pronounced that the protocol was not complied with in handling the corpses - in principle, he does not know what the protocol is, nor is there a protocol .

With that same vehemence I should be looking for my daughter and so many disappeared in Jalisco.

Four years ago, the bodies have been starting to accumulate, but the crisis has been going on for 2 years. No precaution was taken to build a forensic cemetery , " said Cotero Bernal.

In this regard, the former official said that the trailer in motion with 157 bodies was due to insufficiency at  Semefo ; that in order not to have the corpses "on the ground, decomposing at great speed" , it was decided to rent the trailer; he added that these bodies would be taken to a warehouse but that due to the neighbors' complaints about foul odors , they had to move it.

"I do not know who the company is, nor who rented it. I do not have more information because I did not hire it, the trailer I did not pay for it. The trailer is in motion because it is about attending to people's demands, because they do not accept having it anywhere near them. The Prosecutor's Office has the problem to such an extent that, where a forensic cemetery was built, people opposed it and so the work was suspended , " Cotero said.  

The ex-director of the Jalisco Semefo reiterated that the Institute is not responsible for the bodies after they perform their task is to identify them through dentistry, genetics, photographs and fingerprints; that all this information is delivered to the Office of the Prosecutor for when a relative claims the body and confronts it.

The increase of corpses in the Semefo, Cotero concluded, is because nobody is going to claim them; and this, in turn, because the violence in the entity has exploded in the last four years .

Meanwhile Luis Cotero is looking for his own daughter:

They are looking for the daughter of the ex-director of the Jalisco Institute of Forensic Sciences (IJCF), Índira Cotero Ortiz has been missing for since July.

In the General Prosecutor's Office of Jalisco , a complaint was filed for the disappearance of Índira Cotero Ortiz , a lawyer by profession, who works in the Legal Department of the Commissariat of Tlajomulco de Zúñiga , Jalisco, and who is also the daughter of the ex -director of the Jalisco Institute of Forensic Sciences, Luis Octavio Cotero Bernal.

Investigators are looking for the 38-year-old woman The last place where she was seen was a restaurant from Guadalajara, she and a man went out in their compact vehicle. It transpired that they were going to show a land to a client.  She was wearing a pink blouse, jeans and tennis shoes.