Mexican Ex-President Silent About Massacre

Former Mexican President Luis Echeverria Alvarez invoked his constitutional right not to be forced to testify when he missed a Tuesday deadline to answer questions about his alleged role in a student massacre more than 30 years ago, the attorney general’s office said.

Echeverria, 80, who entered a hospital for a few days last week because of a respiratory infection, had until Tuesday to answer 186 questions from a special federal prosecutor about the slaying of students in 1968, when he was interior minister.

Echeverria’s attorney, Antonio Cuellar, had said that his client’s health was delicate and that the former president would ask for an extension of the deadline and answer the questions when he recovered strength.

But the attorney general’s office released a statement saying Echeverria had lodged a formal notification that he would not answer the questions, citing the 20th article of the Mexican Constitution, which gives suspects the right to remain silent.

The attorney general said Echeverria had to appear personally as soon as possible to tell officials that he was invoking his right to remain silent.

Echeverria, who served from 1970 to 1976, is the first sitting or former president to testify before prosecutors as part of a criminal case against him. He has said his conscience is clear.

In July, a special prosecutor questioned Echeverria twice, about the 1968 massacre and a deadly protest clampdown in 1971. Echeverria said he would get back to the prosecutor in writing on dozens of questions.

Survivors of the 1968 massacre criticized Echeverria’s decision not to testify now.