Ex-president declares innocence in Mexico massacre

 

Echeverria, 84, made his first court declaration at home in a private audience with the judge, who now has until Sunday to decide whether to proceed with a trial or dismiss the case, defense lawyer Juan Velasquez said.

 

The ex-president is being held under house arrest due to his age and health concerns.

In a surprise ruling last week, two days before Mexico's presidential election, an appeals court found enough evidence to support a charge of genocide against Echeverria and ordered the former leader's arrest and trial.

 

Echeverria, president from 1970 to 1976 at the height of a so-called dirty war against leftists, denied any wrongdoing in a written statement provided to Reuters by his lawyers.

 

"There is no proof that I was author of or participated in a crime," he said in the statement to Judge Ranulfo Castillo. Echeverria also argued no genocide occurred and too much time has passed prosecute him.

 

He was interior minister in charge of national security when government troops stormed a student rally in the capital on October 2, 1968, days before the opening of the Mexico City Olympics, in a tragedy that remains an open wound for many.

 

Officials said about 30 people were killed in what became known as the Tlatelolco massacre. Witnesses and rights activists put the death toll as high as 300.

Outside Echeverria's sprawling Mexico City residence, survivors of the bloodshed demanded that his hearing be public. They carried signs reading, "Prison for the assassin."

 

The arrest, after two failed attempts to charge Echeverria with genocide, was a breakthrough in outgoing President Vicente Fox's halting drive to punish those responsible for past government brutality. Fox leaves office in December.

 

Prosecutors say Echeverria oversaw a systematic campaign to wipe out dissidents under autocratic, one-party rule and planned the 1968 crackdown with that in mind. His defense team argued that the attack did not constitute genocide.

 

Evidence shows 43 protesters and troops were killed that day in clashes but not as a result of any "state policy of extermination," Echeverria's legal team said.

 

Judge Castillo had earlier rejected the genocide charge against Echeverria but his decision was overturned on appeal.

 

Voters went to the polls on Sunday in the first presidential election since 2000, when Fox ousted the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which ruled Mexico for seven decades, at times using repression to crush dissent.

 

The latest election is seen as a test of Mexico's young democracy. But on Wednesday the top contenders were running neck-and-neck in a vote count drama riveting the nation.

 

(Additional reporting by Jorge Silva)

 

 

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