Ciudad Juarez Report Seeks Probes of 49 Officials

The federal attorney examining the slaying of scores of women in the border town of Ciudad Juarez issued a report Monday calling for 49 local law enforcement officials to face a criminal investigation for allegedly mishandling murder cases.

That brings to 100 the number of police, district attorneys, forensics experts and other officials in Ciudad Juarez and Chihuahua state whom federal officials say should be investigated for alleged abuses and negligence.

Because the report by federal attorney Maria Lopez Urbina does not make public the alleged killers’ names, it was denounced by some victims’ relatives as the latest in a series of evasions and distortions by the government.

Presenting the report at a morning news conference, Lopez Urbina said her findings were based on examinations of 105 cases. Of those, 55 have gone to trial and 45 of them have resulted in convictions, while the remainder are still being investigated. Federal authorities say 340 women have been slain in Ciudad Juarez and Chihuahua since 1993, though some groups say the number is higher.

In her first report issued in June, based on an examination of 50 other cases, Lopez Urbina acknowledged that authorities had botched prosecution of the cases. She cited invalid forensics results, repeated failure by prosecutors to obtain testimony from key witnesses and inadequate preservation of crime scenes.

Lopez Urbina expressed confidence Monday in being able to work with newly appointed Chihuahua state prosecutor Patricia Gonzalez Rodriguez.

Guadalupe Morfin Otero, commissioner for the prevention of violence against women in Ciudad Juarez, who also attended the news conference, said she believed that further investigations could reveal a “total collapse” of local law enforcement in the cases.

Monday’s findings, which followed a government assertion last week that crimes against women in Ciudad Juarez had fallen 58% last year, were received with skepticism and anger by some victims’ families and groups representing them.

“This data that the authorities give are not certain, they are manipulated,” said Lucha Castro of the group Justice for Our Daughters. “Up until this moment, there isn’t one functionary that has been incarcerated.”

Juana Lopez, 56, whose 18-year-old daughter, Karina Torres Lopez, disappeared four years ago, said that “all the authorities lie, the federals as much as those of the states. For them it is very easy to say that the crimes have diminished, but it’s for sure that nobody has resolved the problem.”

Rene Medrano, a spokesman for the Chihuahua state prosecutor’s office, said that when the federal report was officially received, an investigation would begin “and it will be determined what action to take.”

Sergio Aguayo, a political analyst and member of a citizens committee overseeing the Juarez investigations, said he believed there had been “a substantial decrease in the number of crimes against women,” and that local officials were cooperating more with federal agents.

“It’s a little bit too little and too late, but at least it’s something,” he said. “It’s better than what we had before.”

Cecilia Sanchez in The Times’ Mexico City Bureau and Associated Press contributed to this report.