Mexico Charged 4 Soldiers in Shooting Death of American Man, 4 Others in Nuevo Laredo

Federal prosecutors in Mexico have formally charged four soldiers in the killings of five men, including an American, in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, last February.

On Monday, Mexico's Federal Attorney General's Office presented during a court hearing homicide and attempted homicide charges against the four Mexican soldiers who opened fire on a pickup truck in the early hours of February 26, Mexico Daily News reported.

Raymundo Ramos, head of the Nuevo Laredo Human Rights Committee, said last month that 12 soldiers were present during the shooting, and four confessed to firing their weapons.

Deputy Interior Minister Alejandro Encinas confirmed that the victims were not armed and were not involved in a confrontation with the army.

A federal judge in Reynosa City ruled that the four Mexican soldiers, who appeared at Monday's hearing via a video conference, should remain in preventive detention in a military base prison in Mexico City.

The soldiers have been detained there since they were arrested in early March. The court is set to hold an initial hearing on the charges on Wednesday, April 12, when a judge is expected to order the soldiers to stand trial.

The troops are facing prison sentences of up to 60 years for each homicide.

Nuevo Laredo Shooting by Mexico's Soldiers

The Defense Department in Mexico earlier confirmed that Mexican soldiers fired shots at the pickup truck in Nuevo Laredo, killing five men and injuring another.

In a statement, the department said soldiers heard gunshots and approached the pickup with no license plates, but the occupants of the pickup sped up in a "brusque and evasive way" when they saw the army troops.

The Mexican soldiers said the speeding vehicle then crashed into a parked vehicle, and when they heard the crash, they started shooting. The soldiers did not say if they thought the loud noise was a gunshot.

The department reportedly cooperated with civilian prosecutors to investigate the deaths. In a state crime scene report previously acquired by The Associated Press, the Mexican soldiers said the pickup truck ignored their orders to stop.

In a separate statement, the activist group Nuevo Laredo Human Rights Committee noted that the shooting incident sparked a scuffle between soldiers and a big crowd of angry residents who believed the victims were not armed, so "there was no reason to arbitrarily kill them in this way."

American Man Killed by Soldiers in Nuevo Laredo Shooting in Mexico Identified

The 21-year-old American man, who was among the five men shot dead by the Mexican army in Nuevo Laredo, was identified as Gustavo Suarez, Daily Mail reported.

Suarez and six other men were returning from a night out at a club when their pickup truck was shot.

The other dead victims were identified as Wilberto Mata, Gustavo Perez, Jonathan Aguilar, and Alejandro Trujillo. The sixth victim, Luis Gerardo, was wounded after being shot twice.

Alejandro Perez, the seventh person in the vehicle who was not harmed, previously told Univision that he saw one of the Mexican soldiers shoot and kill his brother, Gustavo Perez.

Alejandro said they told the army troops they were not carrying anything and did not have firearms.

The surviving victim also disclosed that the soldiers forced him to make a videotaped confession, in which he had to say that the group was responsible for being shot at by the military troops who threatened him.

Alejandro said the soldiers told him that if he wanted to live, he must say, "we were at fault." A Mexico's National Human Rights Commission report revealed that the four soldiers opened fire 117 times on the seven men.

This article is owned by Latin Post.

Written by: Mary Webber

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