Four Mexican soldiers were sentenced Monday to 40 and nine months in prison after being found guilty of five homicide chiefs and a homicide attempt chief.
The convicted soldiers were found guilty of having pulled a van without discrimination in which seven civilians were driving at the beginning of the morning on February 26, 2023. Civilians returned from an evening in the border town north of Nuevo Laredo after celebrating the imminent birth of the first child of a victim.
The families of the victims celebrated the outcome of the trial, but urged the federal authorities to remain firm in the face of a likely appeal of the convicted soldiers.
The accused remain guaranteed in a military base in Mexico City. If they lose their appeal, they must serve their sentence in a civil prison.
The President Judge also ordered the Motorized XVI commander of the Cavalry Regiment – the soldiers’ attachment base – to apologize to families.
The four soldiers were Officially organized by five homicide chiefs and a homicide attempt chief in April 2023Six weeks after the incident.
The accused were one of the 21 soldiers on the morning in February morning. As part of their defense, they declared that they had heard a strong blow and opened fire on what they claimed to be a fleeing vehicle. Three of the accused initially declared that he had opened fire to support the first soldier who began to shoot.
One of the two survivors testified that the soldiers had fired at least two shots on his injured friends after the van stop. He also denied that they were fleeing the soldiers.
The National Human Rights Commission in Mexico (CNDH) investigated the Prévente incident and qualified shots without justification.
The CNDH report concluded that the soldiers of four patrol vehicles had followed the van according to a “suspicion” and did not follow the appropriate procedure in the vehicle’s commitment.
“Without giving verbal orders (to stop), a soldier opened fire at the back of the private vehicle, and three other soldiers did the same to support the first,” said the report.
Only four of the 21 patrol soldiers opened fire, said the CNDH, but they pulled a total of 117 pick-up shots.
The Ministry of Defense (Sedena) initially declared that the soldiers had heard shots, then approached a van without registration plates and without lights in the dark.
“Seeing the army troops, they (the occupants) accelerated abruptly and evasive,” said Sedena in a preliminary declaration.
In another version of the events, the soldiers said that the truck had moved away from them and crashed into a parked vehicle. It was only after the accident, the soldiers said, that they opened fire.
Reports at crime scene found no evidence of weapons in the van after the shots, and the CNDH report also said that there was no evidence of the military patrol.
Nuevo Laredo was the scene of human rights violations by the military in the past, according to the Associated Press.
Only three months after the February 2023 incident, the soldiers were involved in a high -speed pursuit after which Five civilians were killed despite the recovery apparently wherein Andrés at the time, Manuel López Obrador, described as an execution.
Sedena said at the time that 16 soldiers are expected to face military accusations. However, In January 2024, 13 of the 16 had been released.
Mexico has a separate military judicial system, but soldiers must be tried before federal civil courts for offenses involving non -military victims.
With reports from The universal,, Process,, The country And The Associated Press
