Mexican soldiers acquitted of killing 15 gang suspects in Tlatlaya

A Mexican civilian court has freed the last three soldiers accused of homicide in a 2014 incident in which at least a dozen suspects were allegedly executed after they surrendered.

The Office of the Attorney General emailed a news release at 11 p.m. Friday saying the three were absolved of charges of homicide, cover-up and alteration of evidence for lack of evidence.

The army reported in June 2014 that 22 presumed criminals had died in a clash with the army at a warehouse in the town of Tlatlaya west of Mexico City. It said only one soldier was wounded.

But questions emerged when The Associated Press found that evidence at the site didn't match the army account of a clash with drug suspects. There was little sign of a long gunbattle. Instead, the walls showed a repeated pattern of one or two closely placed bullet holes surrounded by spattered blood, giving the appearance that some of those killed had been standing against a wall and shot at about chest level.

The government's Human Rights Commission later reported that its investigation determined that at least 12 and probably 15 people had been executed at the warehouse. It also said there were attempts by civilian and military authorities to cover up what happened.

Three women who survived came forward to say that agents of the Mexico State prosecutor's office had tortured them to support the army's version, and state officials later charged several police officers with torture.

Juan Velázquez, an attorney who advised the families of the soldiers who were charged, insisted there was no massacre and said the story was part of an effort to discredit the military. "All that story of the execution of Tlatlaya was an invention," he said in an interview.

Seven soldiers were detained and charged in both military and civilian courts. A civilian judge soon threw out charges against four of the soldiers, and the new ruling clears the other three.

In October, a military court acquitted six of the seven soldiers charged with breach of discipline in the case, though the ruling was not made public until March, when it was obtained by a human rights organization. One soldier was convicted of disobeying orders and received a one-year sentence. He has been released.

The government said it began investigating days after the event, but officials gave differing versions following the initial army account of a one-sided shootout.

Following the human rights agency report, Attorney General Jesús Murillo Karam said that his own investigators determined that at least eight of the 22 suspected gang members had been alive when captured and were killed by soldiers, some of them using guns taken from the dead.

A government commission for aiding victims of crime announced last year that it would give about US$3.3 million to relatives of the suspects slain at the warehouse under a Mexican law requiring compensation for victims of human rights violations. At least one family had received the compensation.