Thursday, July 7, 2011

4 guilty in Juarez slayings

Four men were found guilty on Thursday in the January 30, 2010 assassination of almost 20 people in the Villas de Salvarcar neighborhood of Ciudad Juarez.
News accounts differ as to the number of the dead -- La Jornada says 16, Norte Digital says 15. Yet both newspapers link the four men who killed them to the criminal group La Linea.
La Jornada describes La Linea as an armed wing of the Juarez drug cartel in the state of Chihuahua, and says that the four assassins believed their victims worked for two other criminal factions: the Gente Nueva group and the Los Doblados (AA) gang. La Jornada adds that both of these groups were linked to the cartel of Joaquin Guzman Loera ("El Chapo").
Norte Digital reports that the slayings took place at a birthday party and lists the names of the dead: 14 males and one female. In addition to the slain, almost a dozen others were wounded -- Norte Digital says 10, La Jornada says nine.
As for the assassins, La Jornada has some background info, saying that one is a former metropolitan police officer. La Jornada reports that a fifth person (Israel Arzate Melendez) was arrested for the crimes, but that he alleges that he was tortured by the servicemembers who apprehended him.
The four men found guilty will be sentenced on July 11.

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