Tomás Zerón is back and he has done it big.
The former head of the investigators of the Mexican Prosecutor's Office, who has been wanted for years for crimes of torture and forced disappearance in the framework of the
Ayotzinapa case
, in addition to other financiers, has given an interview to the Israeli newspaper
Yediot Aharonot
, the one with the largest circulation in the country.
In the text, Zerón, who says he is happy and in good shape, assures that he is the victim of "political persecution" in Mexico and denies all the accusations against him.
EL PAÍS has a complete translation of the article into English, courtesy of the National Security Archive, a study and research center based in Washington.
The one with
Yediot Ahanot
is the first long interview given by Zerón, who had already spoken with
The New York Times
a few months ago, about his life in Israel and his flight from Mexico, in mid-2019. The former official, whose surrender Mexico has requested to Israel repeatedly, he says that he lives in Tel Aviv and spends his time "reflecting on the meaning of life", exercising, as well as managing his Mexican restaurant in the city - "our tortillas are very good," he says .
At one point in the interview, the journalists ask him, "Are you afraid to smile?"
Zerón answers: "In Israel I feel safe, in Mexico not so much."
The previous exchange reflects the tone of the interview, friendly, sometimes even appreciative, oblivious to the context that surrounds the figure of Zerón in Mexico.
Alien sometimes, also, to Mexico completely.
In the more than eight pages of it, Zerón barely needs to make an effort to deflect uncomfortable questions, neither about the Ayotzinapa case, nor about his alleged embezzlement when he was in charge of the Criminal Investigation Agency (AIC), the investigative arm of the prosecution.
Nor does it require detailing his relationship with the Israeli security equipment suppliers he dealt with in his years in government, and who may have been helping him since he arrived in Israel: they don't ask him.
Zerón shares pages with his lawyer there, Liora Turlevsky.
Between the two they insist that they have sufficient evidence, some, he says, unpublished, to prove his innocence and the version of events that he has always defended in the Ayotzinapa case
:
the murder of the 43, the burning of the bodies in a dump and the disappearance of the remains in a river.
The authors of the note include some of this alleged evidence, for example, the statement of one of the first detainees in the case, whose name or aliases are omitted, and who allegedly participated in the murders, the burning, and the river episode.
Zerón denies that he tortured him or that he ordered him to be tortured.
Him or no one.
Kate Doyle, part of the NSA team in Washington, believes that “this article is a piece of public relations.
I think the intention has been to carefully humanize Zerón, to clear his name.
Doyle, an expert on the Ayotzinapa case, adds: “If Zerón and his lawyer have evidence of any kind that can prove his innocence in mounting the investigation of the Ayotzinapa case, he should be willing to appear before a judge in Mexico and answer to the accusations that are pending against him.
Capture of the cover of the Israeli newspaper 'Yediot Ahronot'.
Doyle further says: “I don't see this interview shedding light on anything new about the
Ayotzinapa case
.
And to be honest, the silence about the families of the 43 that prevails throughout the story, their suffering, which continues until now, in contrast to the calm and happy countenance that Zeron shows in the interview, his life in Israel, his good health, his business adventures, his vital pleasures... It's hard to read.
Perhaps that is why he has not dared to speak with a Mexican outlet and he preferred to do so with an Israeli magazine that clearly does not know Mexico or the case.
The silences are sometimes scandalous.
The interviewers do not ask him about the supposed setup he organized in the San Juan River, where, according to the current people in charge of the investigation, the old device sowed bones from one of the 43, to prop up his theory of the case.
They do not delve into the subject of torture with specific cases, beyond El Chereje, one of those detained at the time, who Zerón took by helicopter to Iguala, the place of the attack against the normalistas, a situation that he avoided recording in the file.
Instead, the text is rich in anecdotes.
As of today, Mexico knows that the former official was the first to import Lacoste garments into the country.
Holm oaks and the coffin
The interview is divided into four large sections.
The note opens with details of the meeting that Zerón held in Tel Aviv in February of last year with Alejandro Encinas, Mexico's Undersecretary for Human Rights, and head of the presidential commission investigating the Ayotzinapa case, one of the various groups participating in the inquiries.
The meeting, the content of which has been partially known for months, introduces Zerón's first statements and opens the door to other issues.
The meeting took place in a Greek restaurant.
The Mexican authorities, the note says, did not inform the Israelis about the meeting, which was "secretly coordinated" between the two men.
This decision not to communicate it, together with the content of the recording of the conversation, have been "the last nail" in the coffin of the extradition request, according to unidentified Israeli "senior official positions" quoted in the article.
The difficulties to bring Zerón back are known, even from the very beginning.
The FGR has taken months on very simple issues, such as document translations, which have delayed the process.
The trip to Israel, last year, of the first person in charge of the investigations during the current administration, Omar Gómez Trejo, seemed to pave the way, especially with regard to the accusation of forced disappearance.
In Mexico, the Prosecutor's Office can accuse of this crime anyone who, through his actions or omissions, prevents the discovery of a disappeared person, in the case of Zerón.
But Gómez Trejo's departure from the case and, apparently, Zerón's meeting with Encinas, have once again complicated it.
It is not Zerón, but the journalists, who summarize the content of the audio of the meeting.
Encinas, who was unaware that he was being secretly recorded, "talked and talked" during the three hours of the meeting and said "completely the opposite of what he was expected to say," according to the authors of the note.
"I'm telling you with all sincerity: I don't want to put you in jail," Encinas says in the recording, according to the authors.
Encinas also assured Zerón, according to the story, that he would know how to defend himself in Mexico in the
Ayotzinapa case
and that he was also aware of his innocence in another of the cases for which he was questioned: the alleged receipt of millions of dollars by intelligence companies. israelis.
“I am not blaming you or holding you responsible for anything.
Speak, I'm not a policeman, ”he told him before asking him to help him“ decipher ”the case in exchange for“ security ”in the legal process in Mexico.
Protesters write slogans against Tomás Zerón at the Israeli embassy in Mexico City, in 2022.CLAUDIO CRUZ (AFP)
El Chapo and the ornaments
The other sections of the interview have to do with El Chapo, the personal life of Zerón and the Ayotzinapa case.
About his life, Zerón says that, when he arrived in Israel, his savings ran out - whose origin is not in question - and now he runs a small Mexican food restaurant for workers in Tel Aviv.
“As a good Mexican in search of the best tortillas,” he says, he came across a Mexican food stand one day in the Carmel market.
One day, the owner told him that he was preparing to close it in two weeks.
Zerón proposed to get together to open a new site, in which he would take care of the business part and the former owner of the position, of the culinary part.
Zerón is also a gastronomic consultant for a restaurant in the city.
Zerón also talks about why he chose Israel to hide - he does not use this verb - over other possible destinations: Israel and Mexico do not have an extradition treaty.
The former official argues that, since he first visited it in 2008, he thought "it would be nice to be a tourist there."
He rejects that his stay there is related to the absence of an extradition agreement between the two countries, arguing that when he fled from Mexico there was no open investigation against him.
He also denies that he has anything to do with his ties to Israeli cybersecurity entrepreneurs.
The article states that he maintains "warm relations" with some of them, which have helped him build a social circle in his new country of residence.
The part that the authors dedicate to El Chapo is also interesting, and serves as a conceptual framework to present Zerón as a "rock star" within the Mexican legal system.
This section revolves around the captures of Joaquín El Chapo Guzmán, in 2014 and 2016, escape in between.
The reporters let Zerón narrate a story in which he becomes the protagonist.
From what he tells, they conclude that the former official "became a rockstar in the Mexican justice system after the capture" of the Sinaloan capo.
A statement as surprising as the previous one is questionable to say the least.
In 2014, before the
Ayotzinapa case
, Zerón still enjoyed credit and managed the AIC with an iron hand.
But from there to thinking that he led the efforts to catch El Chapo is a long way.
Alejandro Hope, a security expert and former official of the Mexican intelligence services, explains that the leading security agency in this matter was the Navy.
"The relationship with the United States agencies was not carried out by Zerón, but by Ortega Siu," he explains, referring to the military chief in charge of the Naval Intelligence Unit.
“Zerón's role in the captures of El Chapo is much less than he presumes.
I think he decorates himself ”, he ditch.
Equally worrying are some statements or narratives in the text about the Mexican political system and the
Ayotzinapa case.
Thus, for example, the authors point out that Enrique Peña Nieto, president between 2012 and 2018, a great supporter of Zerón, lost the presidency in 2018, "largely due to the murder of the students" of Ayotzinapa.
Here the problem is double.
First, because stating the "murder" of the boys overlaps with the interviewee's theory, that the 43 disappeared students died in a garbage dump near the site of the attack, in 2014. Today, investigators reject that theory.
And second, because in Mexico presidents are not reelected.
Mistakes continue and lead to dangerous misunderstandings.
Thus, for example, when he addresses the attack against the students of Ayotzinapa, in Iguala, Guerrero, on September 26 and 27, 2014, he confuses persons and charges.
The text states that "according to researchers, the Pegasus system -a software that is used to seize other people's phones and that the AIC and other agencies contracted in the time of Peña Nieto-, in addition to some press releases, suggested that the governor from the region and his wife were involved in the kidnapping” of the 43.
The authors write the latter to recount Zerón's first days in the case.
Read like this, they seem to refer to the then governor of Guerrero, Ángel Aguirre, who until now had not been named in the case.
The logical thing, however, is that they refer to the mayor of Iguala and his wife, María de los Ángeles Pineda, in prison since 2014, accused of ties to Guerreros Unidos, the criminal group that was at the center of the attack, along with police officers. of various municipalities, with the active or omissive participation of all security corporations, both state and federal.
The authors of the note must have confused mayor with governor.
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