Judge denies Javier Duarte’s appeal to avoid jail for enforced disappearance

A federal judge denied an appeal filed by Javier Duarte de Ochoa , former governor of Veracruz, to avoid an arrest warrant issued against him by a local court for enforced disappearance.

A district appeal judge in criminal matters denied the constitutional protection requested by the former statesman, arguing that the arrest warrant issued against him for the enforced disappearance of 13 people , was in full accordance with the law.

According to the resolution, the public prosecutor’s office proved that Duarte de Ochoa, when he was governor of Veracruz, gave a direct order to the state’s former attorney general, Luis Ángel Bravo , to conceal information on the number of bodies and bones found at the Barranca de La Aurora mass grave , in the Emiliano Zapata municipality.

“Said instruction was due to the fact that the accused, as governor, wanted to avoid ‘a shitstorm.’ At the time, he was subject to public scrutiny and criticism following several investigations of missing persons in the Tierra Blanca municipality ,” the judge told in his ruling.

“His order came from the fact that a photo had been leaked to the media showing six bodies in a clandestine grave. Though he was told that the number of bodies found at the site was larger, he ordered that they only report the six bodies shown in the picture, to avoid further damage to his image,” he stated.

The remains of at least 19 people were found at Barranca de La Aurora in January, 2016 and, according to Veracruz prosecutors, on the instructions of Gilberto Aguirre Garza, general director of Forensic Services, and Carlota Zamudio Parroquia, former delegate of the State Ministerial Police , only the finding of six bodies was reported.

Both Aguirre Garza and Zamudio Parroquia are now in custody, as well as the former Secretary of Public Security (SSP) of Veracruz, Arturo Bermúdez Zurita , who is facing trial without detention.

Out of the remaining 13 bodies that are part of the prosecutors’ indictment against Duarte, one was taken to the Santa Ana community , in the Alto Lucero municipality where, according to recent investigations, authorities pretended to have found the body on site, despite the fact that he had already been identified as David Lara Cruz, state SSP member who had gone missing on January 12, 2016 , after being kidnapped by his colleagues.

The other 12 bodies were not officially reported and their identity and location remains unknown.

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