[progchat_action] Ciudad Juarez femicide prosecutions falter as violence escalates
 
Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 10:11:11 -0600 (CST)


Cotton Field Murder Prosecution Falters as Violence Escalates

by Frontera NorteSur

If Alvarez's legal victory is upheld, it would mark the third time Chihuahua
state and federal cases against suspected cotton field killers have wound up
in tatters. Previous investigations unraveled amid revelations of tortured
suspects, extracted confessions, wild stories, mismatched bodies and other
irregularities.

Posted on February 8, 2008

In a sharp blow to the Chihuahua Office of the State Attorney General
(PGJE), state Judge Catalina Ochoa Contreras declared innocent on Feb. 6 a
suspect charged with killing one of the eight women found murdered in a
Ciudad Juarez cotton field in 2001. The defense of Edgar Alvarez Cruz had
long contended that the charges against the young man were based on lies,
pressured statements and questionable or non-existent evidence.

Alvarez's defense also presented proof that their client was in the United
States at the time of many of the disappearances and slayings of the victims
found in the cotton field. Another inconsistency was the single murder
charge against Alvarez, who was formally accused of killing 17-year-old
Mayra Juliana Reyes Solis, but not tried for the murders of the other
victims who were discovered on the same site and at the same time as Reyes.

The PGJE appealed Judge Ochoa's verdict, but made no immediate public
comment on the ruling.

"The exoneration of the innocent man adds to the list of scapegoats detained
by the state prosecutor as serial killers and then freed for lack of proof
to incriminate them," editorialized Ciudad Juarez's Lapolaka news site. Upon
hearing news of the sentence, Alvarez thanked the court for absolving him of
the Reyes slaying but added, "it should've been done within the first 72
hours."

Alvarez still faces charges in the 1998 killing of teenager Silvia Garbiela
Laguna Cruz, a murder he also vehemently denies committing.

If Alvarez's legal victory is upheld, it would mark the third time Chihuahua
state and federal cases against suspected cotton field killers have wound up
in tatters. Previous investigations unraveled amid revelations of tortured
suspects, extracted confessions, wild stories, mismatched bodies and other
irregularities.

Although questions swirled around Alvarez's August 2006 detention from the
very beginning, Chihuahua State Attorney General Patricia Gonzalez and
representatives her office repeatedly told the press that additional
evidence against Alvarez and two other accused men would be forthcoming. In
the end, however, none materialized.

What distinguished the Alvarez affair against the prior cotton field cases
was the key role played by the United States. Alvarez was living as an
undocumented worker in Denver, Colo., when he was arrested based on a
confession made by Jose Francisco Granados de la Paz to the Texas Rangers.

Held on an unrelated charge, Granados tied Alvarez to the cotton field
killings. Later revelations seriously questioned Granados' credibility as a
witness, painting instead a picture of a disturbed, drug-abusing individual
who was prone to delusions.

Despite the flimsiness of the Alvarez case, as well as the previous use of
torture in the cotton field investigations, the US government quickly
deported Alvarez to Mexico to face trial. He has sat in jail ever since.

At the time of Alvarez's arrest, U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Tony Garza hailed
a major breakthrough in solving the Ciudad Juarez femicides.

While the U.S.-Mexico investigation of the cotton field killings verges on
collapse, three of the victims' mothers are taking their quest for justice
to an international legal body. Last December, the Costa Rica-based
Inter-American Court of Human Rights notified lawyers for the women that it
has accepted their case for review.

The cases were originally pursued in the Washington-based Inter-American
Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) by the mothers of victims Esmeralda
Herrera Monreal, Laura Berenice Ramos Monarrez and Claudia Ivete Gonzalez.
Transfer of the case to the Inter-American Court means that the Mexican
government did not follow the IACHR's recommendations it earlier issued to
ensure justice for victims' relatives. In a separate report late last month,
Mexico's official National Human Rights Commission criticized all three
levels of the Mexican government for not following its own justice
recommendations related to the Ciudad Juarez women's murders.

Karla Michel Salas Ramirez, an attorney for the three mothers and a member
of Mexico's National Association of Democratic Lawyers, said the Costa Rica
case could set a legal precedent for other femicide cases. The Mothers'
lawyers will argue that Mexico is in violation of the Belen Do Para
Convention, an international agreement which obliges states to protect women
from gender violence. The plaintiffs also seek sanctions against Chihuahua
state government officials who were responsible for handling the cotton
field investigation. Unlike the advisory nature of the IACHR'S
recommendations, rulings from the Costa Rica court are obligatory for member
states.

On another international note, the Ciudad Juarez femicides drew a sharp
comment from United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise
Arbour, who was on an official visit to Mexico this week.

"In Mexico, the issue of impunity is the greatest challenge that has to be
confronted and overcome," Arbour said. "The case of the femicides, in which
the justice system doesn't protect women, is worrisome."

In Ciudad Juarez, meanwhile, media outlets, business groups, human rights
organizations and just plain ordinary citizens are all alarmed at the
escalating homicide rates for both men and women since the beginning of the
year. Nine women and girls have been killed for different reasons since Jan.
1. Also last month, a woman's skeleton was recovered from an area frequently
used as a dumping ground for both male and female murder victims.

Additionally, a 15-year-old high school student, Adriana Enriquez Sarmiento,
was reported missing from downtown Ciudad Juarez on Jan. 18. The young girl
had attended the private Ignacio Allende Preparatory, the same institution
three previous femicide victims, including Laura Berenice Ramos, also had
attended,.

In a blog entry this week, El Paso author and longtime femicide researcher
Diana Washington Valdez reported that a female Allende Prep student was
accosted outside the school Jan. 31 by a man who exposed himself to the
girl. According to the journalist, an intervention by prominent Ciudad
Juarez labor rights activist Cipriana Jurado, who just happened to be in the
vicinity of the school at the time of the attack, prompted the man to run
away before police could detain him.

***

Sources: -- Lapolaka.com, February 6 and 7, 2008. -- El Diario de Juarez,
February 7, 2008. Article by Gabriela Minjares. -- Norte, January 30 and
February 7, 2008. Articles by Nohemi Barraza and Antonio Rebolledo. -- La
Jornada, January 30, 2008 and February 6, 2008. Articles by Victor Ballinas
and Ruben Villalpando. -- Cimacnoticias.com, December 26, 2007 and January
24, 2008. Articles by Sara Lovera Lopez and Lourdes Godinez Leal. --
Proceso/Apro, January 29, 2008. Article by Jose Gil Olmos. --
Dianawashingtonvaldez.blogspot.com/

***

Frontera NorteSur (FNS): on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news Center for Latin
American and Border Studies New Mexico State University Las Cruces, New
Mexico

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