Mexico's ex-leader Echeverria won't be tried for genocide

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Houston Chronicle/New York Times

July 12, 2007, 11:34PM
Mexico's ex-leader Echeverria won't be tried for genocide
Judge overturns an earlier finding that Echeverria had a role in a '68 student massacre

New York Times

MEXICO CITY — A federal magistrate ruled Thursday that former President Luis Echeverria cannot be tried or punished in any way for whatever role he might have played in the massacre of student protesters in 1968.

The ruling overturned a judge's decision that enough evidence existed to try Echeverria on genocide charges. Saying the attorney general had not proved Echeverria's involvement, the magistrate granted the former president total protection from prosecution and imprisonment.

"The crime of genocide was committed, but there is not a single proof that Luis Echeverria Alvarez was the one who prepared, conceived and executed the crime of genocide," Magistrate Jesus Guadalupe Luna Altamirano said at an unusual news conference explaining his decision. "The accusation is pure conjecture."

Prosecutors have 10 days to appeal the decision to a panel of three magistrates, but the complete rejection of their case by a high-ranking magistrate is a severe setback. Prosecutors said they were studying the decision to see if there was a possibility of an appeal.




Read more: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/world/4965002.html

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Information on the 1968 Tlatelolco Massacre:
http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/tlatelolco.htm

[Javaman]

1. of course he won't.

:mad: