Prisoners in Torreón were allowed to leave prison at night in order to carry out executions

The Attorney General’s Office (La Procuraduría General de la República –PGR) and the Secretary of the Interior (Secretaría de Gobernación—SEGOB) reported that a commando of prisoners from the Center of Social Rehabilitation 2 (Centro de Readaptación Social Numero 2—CERESO 2) of Gómez Palacio, Durango, would leave the center at night in official vehicles, armed with the weapons of the guards, to carry out ordered executions. According to the online news source El Ágora, their most recent crime was carried out last Sunday at the Quinta Italia Inn, in Torreón, were they executed seventeen people.

According to El Ágora, a couple of days ago a video was circulated on the internet that showed an interrogation by presumed Zeta members, in which a police officer from Laredo, Durango, revealed that the CERESO 2 of Gómez Palacio allowed inmates to leave in order to carry out executions. The spokesperson for the PGR, Ricardo Nájera, said that the inmates would leave the prisons with the permission of the director, Margarita Rojas. He also noted that “unfortunately, in these executions, the delinquents also cowardly murdered innocent civilians, and then returned to their cells later.”

Nájera sustained that this group of prisoners is also responsible for the massacre of ten people in Bar Ferrie last February, and of eight young adults in Bar Juanas in May. He also noted that, after collecting several testimonies, an operation was carried out in CERESO 2 in order to compare the weapons belonging to the guards with casings found at the sites of the executions. So far, Margarita Rojas, the CERESO director; Roberto Enríquez, chief of Safety and Security; Francisco Carlos Alberto Uranga Orona, sub director, and José Guadalupe Rivas Ordaz, chief of Safety and Security, have yielded statements and are under criminal proceedings.

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Sources:

El Ágora. “De día son reos; de noche, sicarios.” El Ágora. 26 Julio, 2010.

Navarro, Israel. “Penal de Gómez Palacio, base de narcopistoleros.” Milenio. 26 Julio, 2010.