Mexican authorities reported Wednesday that weapons used
in the massacre of a Mormon family are Americans, and revealed a new line of
investigation that points to the confrontation of groups of drug traffickers
not mentioned above, who would have mistakenly killed the three women and six
children.
The
Secretary of Security, Alfonso Durazo, explained that the evidence collected by
the experts in the crime scenes allows "to recognize the caliber of .223
caps manufactured by Remington and of North American origin".
The official announced at a press conference that a
bilateral program "to control arms trafficking from the United States to
Mexico" will soon begin to operate.
Of all
the “weapons linked to a criminal act, 70% are from the United States”, he
said.
So far, the main hypothesis of the government is that the
crime, which left a balance of three women and six Mexican-American children
killed Monday between the states of Chihuahua and Sonora, bordering the United
States, would have been the result of a confrontation between groups of
antagonistic drug traffickers.
On Tuesday, the Chihuahua prosecutor's office said a cell
called Los Jaguares, part of the Sinaloa cartel, operates on the site, which
could have been faced with a split from that same subgroup supported by the La
Linea de Chihuahua cartel.
But during Wednesday's conference, Homero Mendoza, chief
of staff of the Defense Secretariat, spoke of another hypothesis.
He said that before the massacre a cell he called Los
Salazar, from the state of Sonora, and La Line, from Chihuahua, had a
confrontation in Sonora.
And
faced with the threat of an eruption of Los Salazar in Chihuahua, La LÃnea
"decides to send a cell between Janos and Bavispe", just where the
massacre of women and their children took place in three vans, Mendoza said.
But according to a family member cited by the national
press, Julián LeBarón, the attack would have been direct.
The family belongs to a Mormon community that has been
living in Chihuahua for more than a century, where they moved after being
persecuted in the United States for their traditions, especially polygamy.
According to the investigations, at least one of the
women got out of the van to ask the attackers raising their arms to stop the
shooting.
The assault also left six children injured, one of them a
three-month-old baby found under the body of his deceased mother.
SOURCE: Panorama
