A Mexican army general has been sentenced to 52 years in prison for ordering the torture and murder of a young man in the town of Ojinaga, just over the border from Texas. The sentence says that Rojas Lemus probably died because of the multiple cardiac arrests this caused. It adds that a military doctor was ordered to write up a death certificate blaming the death on an overdose.
After that, the sentence says, General Moreno ordered soldiers under his command to incinerate the body at a ranch some 60 miles away with 60 liters of diesel, and then dump the ashes in a nearby stream.
According to local media reports Moreno's "death platoon" was also allegedly involved in numerous other murders, as well as kidnapping and extortion as it used and abused its power within the area. The general also reportedly oversaw the resale of cocaine and marijuana it had seized from local traffickers.
General Moreno was arrested in and initially charged within the military court system. A ruling by the Mexican supreme court transferred the case to civilian jurisdiction. The Mexican army has already apologized for a case of torture this month after the emergence of a video of two soldiers and and a federal police officer torturing a young woman. Aguirre insisted that the General Moreno case adds to mounting evidence that these kind of abuses are widespread, and not just isolated incidents.
He mentioned the Tlatlaya case in which a military platoon allegedly killed suspected cartel members after they had been disarmed. This stems from allegations by three soldiers also arrested in the "death platoon" case who allege they were tortured in an effort to force them to accept being scapegoats in the case where responsibility for human rights abuses goes further up the chain of command.
