Video shows Mexican soldiers helping torture woman with plastic bag held over her head
PUBLISHED : Friday, 15 April, 2016, 12:52pm
UPDATED : Friday, 15 April, 2016, 12:52pm
Associated Press
Two Mexican soldiers face military charges after a video surfaced of them helping a federal police officer torture a female suspect, the army said Thursday.
A female military police officer is seen in the video interrogating the woman. She pulls the woman’s hair and puts the muzzle of a rifle against her head. Later, a blue-uniformed federal police officer puts the woman’s head inside a plastic bag until she almost passes out.
The Defense Department said the events occurred February 4, 2015, in Ajuchitan, a small mountain town in southern Guerrero state. Opium poppy plantations are common in the area, where drug cartels operate. [Two soldiers stand over a woman with her head covered in a video said to show them helping a federal police officer torture the female suspect. Photo: AP]
The National Security Commission, which oversees federal police, said its internal affairs unit had launched an investigation, and the Attorney General’s Office said it has been investigating the events since January.
Mexico’s army said the two soldiers were in a military prison facing charges of failure to obey orders.
Under Mexican law, civilian prosecutors are supposed to investigate army abuses against civilians, but soldiers can also face simultaneous charges in military tribunals.
The four-minute video, which was apparently made by a police officer or soldier, shows the handcuffed woman sitting in the dirt, crying, outside a rural cinder-block house.
The female soldier asks repeatedly during and after the torture: “Are you going to talk? Yes or no? Now do you remember?”
As the suspect lies inert on the ground, the female soldier asks: “Do you remember now? Or do you want the bag again? Or water? Or [electric] shocks? Tell me what you want.”
The military justice system acted much more quickly in the case than civilian prosecutors. The army said it found out about the video in December and arrested the two soldiers in January. Civilian prosecutors could not say whether any charges had been filed against anyone in civilian courts.
