On June 21st, the president of Pantelho municipal council, Pedro Cortes Lopez, was arrested along with another person for their alleged participation in the disappearance of 19 people in this municipality on July 26th, 2021, who were last seen after of being detained by the self-defense group of the town “Los Machetes”. This was reported by the State Attorney General’s Office (FGE) in a statement published on the same day.
The arrest occurred after Cortes Lopez gave a press conference at the state Congress in Tuxtla Gutierrez in which he disassociated himself from the disappearance of the nineteen. In turn, he pointed to the self-defense group El Machete, whom he also accused of various crimes such as looting of the municipal treasury for more than 47 million pesos through public works contracts in an arbitrary and discretionary manner.
He stated that “We are the proposal of the people, not of the “Machetes”, which is why in this act we disclaim any responsibility for acts carried out by this armed group against the 21 people who remain disappeared; we are willing to testify before the corresponding bodies, what we saw when they took them to their San Jose Tercero community.”
It should be remembered that in July of last year, the Tsotsil and Tseltal indigenous people of Pantelho decided to arm themselves to stop the siege of organized crime in their municipality, the 19 people detained being identified as participants or accomplices of the “Herrera Cartel”, which for more than 12 years, committed various crimes such as murders and forced disappearances, “but the government never intervened to investigate and investigation files were never opened”, said Cortes Lopez.
For more information in Spanish:
Ligan a presidente del concejo municipal de Pantelhó con desaparición de 19 personas (Aristegui Noticias, 22 de junio de 2022)
Concejal de Pantelhó acusa a «Los Machetes» de la desaparición de personas, luego la Fiscalía lo detiene por ese delito (Chiapas Paralelo, 21 de junio de 2022)
Gobierno concejal de Pantelhó se deslinda y acusa a Los Machetes de diversos delitos (Chiapas Paralelo, 22 de junio de 2022)
Pedro N, presidente consejal de Pantelhó fue detenido en Tuxtla Gutiérrez (El Heraldo de Chiapas, 22 de junio de 2022)
Aprehende FGE a probables responsables de la desaparición de 19 personas en Pantelhó (FGE, 21 de junio de 2022)
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