Eleven police officers were found guilty, on Thursday, in Mexico, of the murder in 2021 of 17 Central American migrants, shot and burned on the border with the United States.
At the end of a process that lasted three months, Judge Patricio Lugo Jaramillo gathered sufficient evidence against the former police officers, announced the prosecutor’s office in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, in the northeast of the country.
Eleven agents were found guilty of murder and another of abuse of authority, the same office reported in a statement.
The sentences, which will be announced in the coming days, can reach up to 50 years in prison.
The deaths occurred on January 23, 2021, when authorities discovered a burned van containing the charred remains of 19 people, mostly migrants from Guatemala who were attempting to illegally enter the United States through Mexico.
The victims “were shot and then burned,” says the Public Ministry statement.
The bodies were found in Camargo, a municipality in the state of Tamaulipas, on the border with the United States.
Among the 19 victims were two Mexicans, identified as the smugglers who took the migrants to the border, according to authorities.
Source: TSF
