Mexico Arrests Chief of Israeli, US-Trained Elite Unit Over Disappearances
Mexico Arrests Chief of Israeli, US-Trained Elite Unit Over Disappearances
https://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Mexico-Arrests-Ex-Chief-of-Israeli-US-Trained-Elite-Unit-Over-Disappearances-20180208-0003.html
Mexico Arrests Ex-Chief of Israeli, US-Trained Elite Unit Over Disappearances
Official documents show that the Civil Force of Veracruz state and other local agencies have been investigated for 145 cases of disappearances.
A former high level police officer from the eastern Mexican state of Veracruz was arrested Wednesday over charges of "forced disappearances" during his tenure as the head of an elite unit called Civil Force, which has received training from U.S. and Israeli agencies.
Federal and state agents captured Roberto González Meza, former director of the Civil Force of Veracruz, an elite unit that included 2,000 highly trained agents during the administration of Governor Javier Duarte de Ochoa between 2010 and 2016. Duarte himself is in prison and faces charges related to organized crime and money laundering.
Official documents from both federal and state prosecutors show that in the state of Veracruz, where violence is widespread due to warring drug cartels, a total of 145 cases of "forced disappearances" have been investigated where police officers of various levels of government are allegedly involved, between 2013 and 2016.
Meza is accused of ordering the elite unit to carry out many of the forced disappearances, local media reported and added that he has already appeared before a judge in his home state.
The Civil Force includes 2,000 agents who receive specialization and training courses from the several Mexican military agencies as well as institutions in countries such as Canada, United States, Spain, France, Guatemala, Israel, Italy and Czech Republic, local media reports.
Among the unit’s essential tasks is the fight against organized crime groups, the containment and reduction of common crimes, and the assistance to the population in cases of natural disasters.
Local media also reported that José Nabor Nava Holguín, the unit’s former sub-secretary of operations, was arrested among other former agents.
The news comes as activists and critics of the government of President Enrique Pena Nieto say the newly approved Internal Security Law will bring more militarization and impunity to the country’s police forces while giving the army more role in civilian affairs.
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In the presence of the parents and family members of the 43 missing Ayotzinapan students, the Inter-American Human Rights Committee (IACHR) met with Mexican government officials to check its current progress in the case.
Before the committee, Government officials reaffirmed their commitment to the cause and its intention to exhaust all possible means to pursue investigations. As selfless as the statement seemed, after three and a half years of “searching”, families and human rights defenders have denounced their sub-par attempts to bring the students home.
Since their disappearance on September 26, 2014, from Iguala, Guerrero while en route to a controversial political protest, the government has become the prime suspect in light of the multitude of conflicting explanations issued by the state.
Official statements claim the students were arrested in Iguala by local authorities, who then delivered them to members of the Guerreros Unidos cartel which killed them and burned their bodies.
Experts say incinerating so many bodies in a dumpster without leaving a single trace, a claim made in official police reports, is technically impossible. Many of the expert witnesses have since joined family members in their push for justice.
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