Saturday 17 November 2012

Mexican anti-crime coordinator removed from post

Mexican dailies reported on 16 November the resignation "for strictly personal reasons" of the head of the prosecutor's office dealing with organized crime - SEIDO - while indicating that the departure came at the request of Mexico's Prosecutor-General Marisela Morales Ibañez. She was said to have sought the removal of José Cuitláhuac Salinas Martínez as well as the deputy-prosecutor in charge of assaults and car thefts, for "anomalies" found within that office and "possible indications" of criminal conduct by members of its staff, the dailies El Informador and El Universal reported on 16 November. According to CNN Salinas Martínez had resigned weeks before but was provisionally kept in his post. His office, like other public institutions in Mexico, was feared infiltrated and corrupted by drug cartels. Salinas, who took office on 1 November 2011, was also reported to have refused to dismiss officials as requested by the Prosecutor-General. The prosecutor-general's office appointed Rodrigo Archundia Barrientos as acting head of SEIDO (Procuraduría Especializada en Investigación de Delincuencia Organizada).

About 30 killed, found dead in Mexico over three days

More than 30 people were reported killed or found dead from apparent criminal incidents around Mexico on 14-16 November, including gangsters, civil servants and policemen and children, Proceso reported on 15 and on 16 November. The victims included: an official of the state prosecutor's office gunned down while driving in the north-central district of Guanajuato, seven shot dead in the western resort of Acapulco, and two policemen shot dead, in the south-central state of Morelos and in Piedras Negras near the US frontier. The decomposing body of a 12-year-old boy was found on 15 November in Madera in the north-western state of Chihuahua; police believed he was strangled or suffocated to death 30 days earlier. Eleven or 12 of the dead were suspected gangsters shot dead in gun battles with troops in different parts of the country. In one incident gunmen in a convoy of 10 cars began firing on a military patrol in the north-eastern district of Tamaulipas; in another late on 16 November troops shot dead four suspected gangsters on a road in the northern state of Zacatecas, El Universal reported on 17 November. The troops were said to have fired after coming under attack. The former mayoress of Tiquicheo in the western state of Michoacán was found dead on 15 November, in Cuitzeo in the same state, El Universal reported on 17 November. María Santos Gorrestieta Salazar was twice the target of attempted assassinations when she was mayoress in 2008-11, in 2009 when a gun attack killed her husband and in 2010.