Martha Dalay Soto
What do we know about the case?
The facts were presented in the following order:
1) On September 15, 2008 was the detonation of 2 fragmentation grenades, during the celebrations of Independence Day in Morelia, Michoacán; in a timely manner, in the Plaza Melchor Ocampo, and one more in the street León Guzmán corner Madero Avenue.
2) Days after the attack in the capital city of Michoacán in 2008, the Attorney General’s Office (PGR), under the direction of Eduardo Medina Mora at the time, reported the capture of three individuals responsible for the violent acts that caused eight deaths and left more than 100 people injured; their names are Alfredo R. E., “El Socio” or El Valiente; Juan Carlos C., “El Grande”, and Julio César M. M., “El Tierra Caliente”. They were presented as members of the Zetas Cartel.
3) On the afternoon of May 27, 2009, the Sixth District Court of Federal Criminal Proceedings in Jalisco issued an acquittal to the three defendants for all the crimes they were accused of.
Although this attack was attributed to organized crime, based on the fact that in 2008 then President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa had declared war on drug trafficking and probably the members of this cartel had retaliated, it is not yet clear that the attack came from there.
In this way, this is how we find one of the first “vices” as they call it, and that is that, it was announced in the media that afternoon of May 27, 2009 that they had released members of the Zetas cartel when they discovered that they had been illegally detained and subjected to torture to obtain guilty pleas. It seems that then those who captured the military forces of the Government of Michoacán were only scapegoats or characters who were part of a smokescreen to free themselves from the social pressure of that moment.
If this argument were not enough, a couple of days after that statement was published on the Official Website of the Government of the State of Michoacán, on September 15 of last year the journalist J. Jesús Lemus published in the Los Angeles Times a note called “14 years after the ‘grenades’, it is still not known who attacked the civilian population in Morelia”. where he says that before they released those who were identified as the material authors of the attack, he had the opportunity to talk to them and explains who they are.
In the interview that Jesús Lemus held with one of them in the federal prison of Puente Grande, in Jalisco, he finds that one of the defendants who comes from Lázaro Cárdenas, Michoacán is not from the Zetas Cartel; the arrested man named Jesus L. confesses “I have nothing to do with that situation, I am a mechanic and my wife sells dinner in the house at night to be able to take out the expenses of the family (…) They arrested me because they had to introduce someone to the government.”
When asked when and where he was detained, he replied, “They arrested me in Lázaro Cárdenas, the day after the grenades. I was working at home, in a workshop I have there. I was repairing a car that was taken to me to fix my gear, when I was kidnapped. It was an armed commando (…) they were not in police patrols. There were about 20 who stopped me, they were in several vans. All had their faces covered, with goat horns; They came and put me in a van.”
Then he was asked how many he came with and replied “They arrested me alone, but in the accusation they read me it says that I come with the other two, with those who were taken from here, although I do not know them (…) says that I am one of the three who threw the grenades in Morelia (…) they are accusing me of belonging to Los Zetas and of being part of a special commando that arrived in Michoacán to heat the state. That’s what it says in the indictment they gave me to sign.”
Finally, when questioned if he signed acceptance and the reason, he said the following “yes, how could I not sign if they were killing me. They were drowning me when they gave me the sheets to sign, and the public prosecutor said that if I did not do so they would order my wife and my entire family to be lifted. And having seen how they took me out of my house, I don’t doubt that they can send someone to kill my wife and children.”
As an addition, another inconsistency that was found was that among the conversation, which was heard in the corridors, that had a custodian with one of the inmates inside the prison, it was said that the attack was at the hands of the Familia Michoacana cartel, while in pRensa was said to have been orchestrated by the Zetas Cartel.
