A federal judge postponed the initial hearing of Antonio Molina Díaz, General Director of Immigration Control and Verification of the Migration’s national institute (INM), implicated by the Attorney General of the Republic (FGR) in the fire that occurred on March 27 at the immigration station in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, where 40 migrants died.
In it Chihuahua Federal Criminal Justice Centerresiding in Ciudad Juárez, a federal control judge led a hearing on Wednesday in criminal case 236/2023, where Molina Diaz He was summoned to testify for the crime of illegal exercise of public service.
In this initial hearing for the formulation of the accusation, the legal defense of the official requested to impose himself on the investigation folder, for which the control judge decreed the suspension of the initial hearing, but not the constitutional term.
The hearing will continue this Friday. For now, the judge imposed on Antonio Molina Díaz the precautionary measure of monthly periodic presentation and the prohibition to leave the country.
On April 13, the General Prosecutor of the Republic (FGR) reported that it obtained from the Federal Criminal Justice Center in the State of Chihuahua, with residence in Ciudad Juárez, initial hearings to formulate charges against the director of the National Institute of Migration (INM), Francisco Garduño, and Antonio Molina Díaz, director of Immigration Control and Verification
The summons to Garduño occurred one day after the very General Prosecutor of the Republic (FGR) announced that he would charge him with the crimes for the March 27 fire at an INM station in Ciudad Juárez.
“In these hearings, the accusations and the test data obtained by the FGR will be known. As soon as there is information in this regard, it will be announced,” said the FGR.
The FGR it accuses that both Francisco Garduño and Molina “incurred in alleged criminal conduct, by failing to comply with their obligations to monitor, protect and provide security to the people and facilities in their charge, promoting the crimes committed against migrants.”
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has supported Garduño, describing him as a good public servant, but El Salvador’s Vice Minister of Diaspora and Human Mobility, Cindy Mariella Portal Salazar, described the fire as a “state crime” and demanded his dismissal and the prosecution of Francisco Garduño Yáñez.
(With information from Jorge Monroy.)
