For a map, click here
Updated with additional information including some details from a Mexican human rights report on the incident. Site commander sentenced has been identified through an article posted Saturday morning at proceso.com.mx
By Chris Covert
Two Mexican unidentified army officers and 12 enlisted personnel were sentenced for their role in the shooting of five members of a family at an army checkpoint in 2007, according to Mexican news reports.
The killings took place June 1st, 2007 in Sinaloa state in a village named La Joya when Adan Abel Esparza apparently ran an army checkpoint in his pickup truck, and despite shouts by soldiers to do so, refused to stop.
Army gunfire killed Adan Abel Esparza, his wife who was not identified in news accounts, an unidentified female sibling and his two daughters, ages four and two.
Three unidentified civilians were also wounded in the gunfire.
The case had gained some notoriety in that it had been submitted to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.
All 14 soldiers were charged with murder and aggravated assault in the incident. The sentences meted out were called "severe" in some Mexican news accounts.
The commander, identified as 2nd Captain of Cavalry Candido Alday Arriaga and presumably the site commander was sentenced to 40 years in prison, dismissal from the army and a bar to employment in the military for ten years.
A second officer was sentenced to 38 years in prison with the same bars to employment in the army as the site commander.
The 12 enlisted soldiers involved were sentenced to 16 year in prison.
The document released by the Secretaria de Defensa Nacional (SEDENA), the agency for the Mexican Army noted that an undisclosed amount in compensation claimed were paid in the aftermath as well.
The document goes on to note that since 2006, about the time human rights departments were introduced into the Mexican military services, SEDENA has acted on 89 human rights complaints against Mexican Army soldiers.
About 5,800 cases filed in the same period have been dismissed as apocryphal, characterized by at least one SEDENA official as "jokes".
The Mexican Comision Nacional de Derechos Humanos, or National Human Right Commission published a paper which disputed many of the preliminary findings in the incident.
According to the CNDH, the military prosecutor investigating the case, failed in several ways to properly conduct the investigation.
For example, it was later learned that at least two of the detachment at the site of the checkpoint were intoxicated by drug or alcohol
Amongst the problems the CNDH said in its problematic report were:
- The army failed to move the wounded for medical attention for more than three hours. Two of the five victims died during that time.
- The army obstructed transport of the wounded to hospitals, although news reports failed to detail what the army did to delay transport.
- The local prosecutor investigating rhe case, presumably for the state of Sinaloa failed to order drug/alcohol tests for all personnel at the checkpoint, preferring instead to check the putative shooters. The part of the news report mentioned the local prosecutor was working in support of military investigators, but failed to detail if that nexus tainted the investigation, and if so, how. The report also complains that those who attempted to stop movement of the wounded for medical attention on were not checked for drugs or alcohol.
- The military prosecutors service failed to conduct their investigation according to the rules, but the report faild to detail what, if any rules were not followed.
- The site commander had allegedly ordered a bag of marijuana to be laced at the scene of the vehicle, which had overturned in the melee. Reports do not detail if the order was actually carried out.
- The military failed to pay for the damage caused to the vehicle in which the family was riding.