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News > Latin America

Mexican Soldiers Tortured Woman in Leaked Video

  • Soldiers escort suspected drug gang hit men to be presented to the media at a military base on the outskirts of Monterrey, northern Mexico May 4, 2009.

    Soldiers escort suspected drug gang hit men to be presented to the media at a military base on the outskirts of Monterrey, northern Mexico May 4, 2009. | Photo: Reuters

Published 14 April 2016
Opinion

This is the latest allegation of abuse committed by the military forces in Mexico.

An army captain and a soldier were arrested Thursday after a video emerged showing a woman being tortured by troops and an apparent police officer, Mexico's defense ministry informed.

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The jarring clip circulating online shows a female soldier placing the tip of her assault rifle on the woman's head as she sits on the ground barefoot.

A man in a blue police uniform then tightly wraps a plastic bag around the woman's head while the soldier asks her, "are you going to talk?"

The woman, who is sobbing throughout the ordeal, answers: "Who's Maria? I don't know her."

The Defense Ministry said the incident took place in February 2015 in the town of Ajuchitlan del Progreso, in the southern state of Guerrero, but that it was only informed about it in December.

The ministry said in a statement that the captain and the female soldier, who is part of the military police, were detained in January on charges of disobeying orders.

The case was shared with the attorney general's office, the statement said.

An official at the attorney general's office could not immediately confirm whether an investigation was underway, or whether a police officer was involved in the abuse.

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Police and troops have faced a slew of accusations of torture and other abuses since soldiers were deployed in the streets of Mexico to combat drug trafficking in 2006.

A soldier has been detained in connection with the February disappearance and murder of a civilian in the eastern state of Veracruz.

In a separate case in the same region, eight state police officers were charged for the January disappearance of four young men and a 16-year-old girl.

And in another high-profile case, a military court last October acquitted seven soldiers who were detained following the killing of 22 alleged drug gang members in the central state of Mexico in June 2014.

Authorities had initially reported the deaths as resulting from a shootout, but allegations of extrajudicial killings later emerged.

Three of the soldiers still face murder charges in civilian court for the deaths of eight of the 22 suspects.

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