The Mexican Secretariat of National Defense (Sedena) acknowledged this Tuesday that it was the military who fired at a vehicle over the weekend in Nuevo Laredo, in the state of Tamaulipas, in an attack that ended with five young people dead, including an American. , and two badly injured.
The official version, however, is far from that offered by relatives of the victims and a survivor.
"Why were they killed?": Parents of the young people killed in Nuevo Laredo demand answers from the Army
Feb 27, 202301:50
In a statement, Sedena explained that a group of soldiers "carried out reconnaissance in the urban area" when they "heard shots of firearms." They saw a "van with seven individuals on board, who were speeding with the lights off." and without license plates", he added, that, "when observing the presence of troops, they accelerated speed in an untimely and evasive manner, stopping when impacting with a parked vehicle."
"Upon hearing the noise, military personnel activated their weapons," he said.
But one of the survivors of the attack (the other is in a coma) contradicts that version of the incident, under investigation by the Attorney General's Office.
In a testimony to authorities and human rights organizations published by the newspaper El País, Alejandro Pérez, 21, recounts that they were returning home on Saturday night after partying at a club in the area, when they realized that an Army vehicle was chasing them.
[USA. formalizes the extradition request for 'El Ratón', one of the sons of 'El Chapo']
The military vehicle collided with his truck from behind, he said, and bullets began to rain down on them.
At no time did they start the shooting, he said, because none of them was armed.
“I managed to see how an element shot a colleague who was already wounded.
He asked for an ambulance, but a military element shot him again, ”he recounted.
"When I got out of the truck, I heard the military say, 'Kill him, kill him!' They put my chest to the ground. Then I still heard two more shots, and after a while I saw my brother lying on the ground," he said. .
Women activists are brutally beaten in front of the police in Mexico and they did not help them
Feb 27, 202300:32
According to his testimony, the military demanded, while they videotaped him, that he plead guilty and admit that they had tried to flee if he wanted to stay alive.
The dead youths were identified as the Mexicans Gustavo Pérez Beriles, Wilberto Mata Estrada, Jonathan Aguilar Sánchez, Alejandro Trujillo Rocha;
and the American Gustavo Ángel Suárez Castilo.
The National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) announced the opening of an investigation;
The president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, told the press on Wednesday that "the military authorities cooperate and, if they are responsible, they will be punished."