18 Mexican policemen to stand trial

After an investigation of the kidnapping of four federal agents, a Mexican judge ordered 18 police officers to stand trial on charges of aiding drug traffickers, prosecutors said Saturday.

Several of the officers from Guadalupe, near Monterrey in the northeastern state of Nuevo Leon, also are charged with abducting the four agents on behalf of the band of Gulf cartel hit men known as the Zetas, the attorney general’s office said in a statement.

The federal officers were kidnapped April 17 in the U.S.-Mexico border city of Reynosa, and local media reported they were being taken to Nuevo Leon. They later were freed.

Most of the suspects are not accused of involvement in the kidnapping but with providing protection to a group of “hawks,” or drug gang informants.

“Their function was to become ‘the eyes of the city, lookouts to keep the criminal organization of the Zetas informed,’ ” the attorney general’s office said. Three of the suspected informants are also in jail.