A federal judge in Ciudad Juárez recently ordered preventive detention for the three employees of the National Institute of Migration of Mexico (INM) accused of their alleged involvement in the death of 40 people in a migrant center in the border town with United States, local media reported today.
In the first hearing of the case, the Attorney General’s Office (FGR) accused Eduardo Apodaca Magallanes, Juan Carlos Meza Cumplido, and Cecilia Rivera Tena, of the crimes of homicide, injuries and illegal exercise of public service.
The defendants’ lawyers, meanwhile, asked for more time to be able to gather evidence in favor of their defendants, according to the local newspaper El Universal.
On March 27, a fire broke out in an INM center in Ciudad Juárez that ended with the death of 40 people.
The Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, accused the inmates themselves of starting the fire by lighting a mattress as a sign of protest against a possible future deportation.
But a recording from security cameras showed how some migrants were locked in cells while INM officials left the center without helping them, the Europa Press news agency said.
In addition, a Mexican federal official told the Los Angeles Times on anonymity that the reason for the protest was that there were 68 people locked up in a cell with a capacity of no more than 50 and without access to drinking water.
The lack of minimum standards for these centers is frequently denounced by various civil society organizations, which report in their reports overcrowding, lack of access to food and drinking water, spaces without sunlight or the possibility of going outdoors, as well as the Difficulty accessing the right to health or to communicate with relatives or have legal representation to support their cases.
According to the authorities, a total of six arrest warrants were issued, three of them against officials of the entity responsible for migration, two directed at private security agents, and one against the migrant who started the fire.
Source: Ambito
