A Mexican civilian court has freed the last three soldiers accused of homicide in a 2014 incident in which at least a dozen suspects were allegedly executed after they surrendered.
The federal attorney general’s office emailed a news release at 11 p.m. Friday saying the three were absolved of charges of homicide, cover-up and alteration of evidence for lack of evidence.
The army reported in June 2014 that 22 presumed criminals had died in a clash with the army at a warehouse in the town of Tlatlaya west of Mexico City. It said only one soldier was wounded.
But questions emerged when the Associated Press found that evidence at the site didn’t match the army account of a clash with drug suspects. There was little sign of a long gunbattle. Instead, the walls showed a repeated pattern of one or two closely placed bullet holes surrounded by spattered blood, giving the appearance that some of those killed had been standing against a wall and shot at about chest level.
The government’s Human Rights Commission later reported that its investigation determined that at least 12 and probably 15 people had been executed at the warehouse. It also said there were attempts by civilian and military authorities to cover up what happened.
Juan Velazquez, an attorney who advised the families of the soldiers who were charged, insisted there was no massacre and said the story was part of an effort to discredit the military.
“All that story of the execution of Tlatlaya was an invention,” he said in an interview.