Abel Barajas/ Reform Agency
Monday, April 10, 2023 | 15:31
Nuevo Laredo, Mexico.- A federal judge ordered the ex officio preventive detention of four soldiers who allegedly murdered five young people and injured another on February 26, in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas.
The corporals named Juan Carlos, Bernardo, Jorge Nicolás and Agustín Cornelio, were imprisoned in Military Camp Number One, where they had been made available since last March.
The Attorney General of the Republic charged the soldiers today before a control judge of the Reynosa Federal Criminal Justice Center for the crimes of qualified homicide and attempted homicide, within criminal case 46/2023, reported the Council of the Federal Judiciary.
In a videoconference hearing that began this Monday at 10:44 a.m. and concluded at 2:21 p.m., the judge imposed pre-trial detention on the defendants at Military Camp Number One in Mexico City.
The military were already imprisoned in this prison, apparently being prosecuted for crimes under military jurisdiction, and for this reason they appeared at the initial hearing this Monday remotely from Mexico City.
The military asked the judge to double the legal term to define their legal situation, so it will be next Wednesday at 4:00 p.m. when the hearing resumes and it is resolved whether or not they are linked to the process.
In the early hours of February 26, five young people were murdered by elements of the National Defense Secretariat (Sedena) in the Manuel Cavazos Lerma neighborhood, in Nuevo Laredo.
The National Human Rights Commission issued a recommendation stating that the military fired on civilians on “suspicion.”
The CNDH said that four elements fired at the vehicle in which the victims were circulating, without any aggression by civilians or a real threat against the servers or third parties.
The version contrasts with the one spread by the Sedena, in which it stated that the civilians were armed.
The undersecretary of Human Rights, Alejandro Encinas, also said that the youths were executed, without any indication that they were armed or data from a confrontation.
