The siege closes over the Army in the case of the Nuevo Laredo massacre.
The second survivor of the attack, Luis Gerardo S, testified this week before the Attorney General's Office (FGR) that soldiers shot him twice, when he was badly injured, lying on the ground, asking for help.
His statement, of which EL PAÍS has a copy, practically coincides in everything with that of the other survivor, Alejandro Pérez, who was unharmed.
The other five young people who were traveling with them were killed by bullets from the military.
The event has generated outrage in Mexico.
Unlike other occasions, the victims did not shoot first.
Nor after.
According to the report signed by the commanding officer of the military operation, cavalry captain Elio N, the boys did not even carry weapons.
They left a nightclub and went back to their homes.
The soldiers followed them and shot.
They did it more than 60 times.
The Secretary of Defense (Sedena) has indicated that the "rumble" that caused the boys to collide with a parked car caused some soldiers to shoot.
In the statement, taken at a hospital in the border city, the boy, assisted by a lawyer from the Nuevo Laredo Human Rights Committee, an organization that has followed the case from the beginning, says that the soldiers shot at them from different positions, such as suggested the autopsy studies carried out on the bodies of the five dead, which this newspaper reported last week.
Luis Gerardo S also states that several soldiers fired from at least two trucks, more than the four mentioned in his report by Captain Elio N.
People walk in front of the site where the attack took place, on March 1.
Monica Gonzalez Islands
“I was already very hurt.
In fact, I was lying on the floor, some soldiers stomped on my face with their boots and said they were going to kill us because we were from the Northeast [Cartel],” explains the 25-year-old boy.
"I perfectly remember that one of the soldiers threw me from behind, when I was wounded, thrown to the side of the tire of the truck in which we came," he adds.
Luis Gerardo S says that right after, with his remaining strength, he tried to call his mother by phone, but a soldier took the phone from him and stepped on it.
Another soldier shot him, again, in the back.
The story continues.
“I got into a fetal position, because I already only looked red, I vomited blood.
It was then that this soldier kicked me in the face with his boots, ”he says, referring to an element that had just pointed the gun at him, thinking, according to the young man's account, that he wanted to escape from him.
Luis Gerardo S says that from the first burst of shots they asked for help, an ambulance.
“It took a long time to arrive and when they put me on I lost consciousness,” he explains.
His story largely coincides with that of Alejandro Pérez.
The two say that on Saturday, February 25, they went with five other friends to a nightclub in downtown Nuevo Laredo, on the Tamaulipas-Texas border.
They left there at dawn on Sunday, after 4:00.
They got into the truck of one of the fatalities, Gustavo Suárez, and headed to the Cavazos Lerma neighborhood, in the south of the city.
Luis Gerardo S recounts that “upon arriving at [calle] Iglesias Calderón, on the corner with Huasteca street,” the southern zone of the neighborhood, he saw four military trucks.
Immediately afterwards, he says, two of the four began to follow them.
The young man's story also coincides with the content of the video from a surveillance camera that picked up part of the persecution, installed in a car wash, two blocks to the north, on Huasteca street.
In the images, you can see the boys' truck, a white pickup and, about 50 meters behind, the two military.
Both pieces of evidence contrast, however, with the report presented by Captain Elio N after the events.
The officer said that the pursuit began about 300 meters later, already on Huasteca street.
The cameras and now this story contradict him.
Family and friends during the wake of Gustavo Angel Suárez, one of the five young people who died at the hands of the military. Mónica González Islas
Alejandro Pérez and Luis Gerardo S also agree that, during the chase, one of the military trucks collided with theirs, causing the boys to collide with a vehicle parked on the street, a navy blue Hyundai Accent.
This version contrasts with the one given by Captain Elio N, who says that the boys had an accident on their own.
The two young men agree again when pointing out that, after the first burst of shots, some of the soldiers present said that they were going to kill them, while they asked for help or complained about the pain of their wounds.
Luis Gerardo S insists several times in his statement that the military asked for their weapons.
Apparently they thought the boys were carrying rifles or pistols.
“When I got out of the truck, I told the soldiers why they were shooting at us, if we didn't bring anything, that we were drinking.
They told us that we were from the Northeast, that where the weapons were, ”he says.
“I heard that my friends were complaining, but the soldiers kept laughing.
Only one soldier told me, 'hold on, boy, the ambulance is coming', I was very hurt”, he adds.
Unlike Pérez, his partner does not mention the two or three subsequent shots that the first one heard.
In his testimony, Pérez points out that after the bullets that Luis Gerardo S received, which he attests to, the military forced him to lie down, chest to the ground, a position in which he remained for a long time.
Being like this, he heard two or three more shots.
The Human Rights Committee of Nuevo Laredo, an organization that has been following the case from the beginning, pointed out that this opened up the possibility that the military had finished off one of the boys.
The autopsy reports of the five victims do not allow us to confirm or rule out the latter.
The driver and co-pilot presented 12 and 10 gunshot wounds, respectively.
Of the five behind, in addition to the survivors, one had five wounds, another two and another one.
The latter died from that bullet, a shot to the temple.
Two weeks after what happened, the authorities remain silent.
The FGR, in charge of the investigations, has not given any explanation in this regard.
Some media have reported these days that the agency plans to charge the four soldiers who allegedly shot, according to the report of their command, murder and attempted murder.
The status of the military is equally unknown.
The media have reported that the Sedena has prosecuted them for a crime of disobedience, according to the code of military justice.
It is not known if the soldiers are free or imprisoned.
Nor is it known whether the FGR will climb the chain of command to understand how it is possible that the soldiers acted as they did that day in Nuevo Laredo.
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