UN documents 34 cases of torture in 'Ayotzinapa' investigation
Among the documented practices are electric shocks in various parts of the body including the genitals, nipples and anus; anal penetration of three men arrested; threats of rape to family members of the detainees; hits; suffocation with plastic bags and drowning with wet rags. The captives blamed the torture on elements of the Federal Police, the Federal Ministerial Police, and the sailors.
This is just a drop in the sea of irregularities that The Office of the High Commissioner of the United Nations Organization (UN-DH) has exposed several irregularities in what the Mexican Government proudly calls the historical truth, the judicial investigation conducted by the Attorney General of the Republic (PGR) of the Ayotzinapa case, led by the then prosecutor Jesús Murillo Karam.
The experts of the international body have published Doble Injusticia (Double injustice), a 65-page report presented Thursday, which collects, verifies and analyzes the human rights violations committed during the great stage of the investigation, from September 2014 to January 2016. " The report contributes to the search for truth and justice in this case and more broadly to the national agenda to fight against impunity, disappearances and torture in Mexico, "say the authors. The UN-DH experts reviewed the judicial files and met with detainees, witnesses, lawyers and the relevant authorities that investigated the events that occurred almost four years ago. What they found was a "consistent pattern of human rights violations and a practically uniform modus operandi" that began with arbitrary arrests of people, went through significant delays in their presentation to the authorities, torture and subsequent transfer to the Public Prosecutor's Office.
Much of Double injustice is dedicated to documenting the torture to which many of the detainees were subjected. The UN examined the information of 63 of the 129 detainees throughout the investigation who said they had been mistreated. In 51 cases, it found possible acts of torture. The report is based on the analysis of 34 of them, 33 men and one woman. "The UN has strong elements of conviction about the commission of torture, arbitrary arrests and other human rights violations," the text says.
The alleged acts of torture were committed in the vehicles for the transfer of detainees, in security homes, in vacant lots and in the offices of the PGR and its Deputy Attorney General for Organized Crime Investigation (SEIDO). All the cases analyzed have one thing in common. "They took place after the PGR brought the case," this is after October 5, 2014, and when the international pressure increased to clarify the facts. The UN-DH did not know of any case of torture while the investigations were carried out by the authorities of the State of Guerrero or by prison authorities. The Mexican government has, of course, responded to the accusations made by the UN.
In a statement, the PGR assures that the report "omitted" information from evidence obtained in expert evidence based on the highest international standards. On the cases of torture analyzed, the Government assures that "they have not been accredited, except in some exceptional cases that have been publicly reported."