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| Lt. Col. Martín Pérez Reséndiz, highest ranking soldier relieved of duty Photo: http://vetazacatecas.mx/ |
At least four soldiers, one of them high-ranking, were removed from their posts for their alleged role in the disappearance of seven young people later found dead with the coup de grace.
Proceso magazine reported that Lieutenant Colonel Martín Pérez Reséndiz and three other soldiers from the 97th Infantry Battalion were turned over to the Attorney General of Military Justice (PGJM) ... and have been transferred to the state of Jalisco ....
Pérez Reséndiz is identified as presumably responsible for leading the operation carried out in the municipality of Calera in which the young people were 'snatched'.
Military sources told Proceso news agency that, for now, the status of the military officer and the other three soldiers appearing before the PGJM would be as presented, not detained. However, they confirmed that witnesses and the young people's relatives identified the military officer as the person who led the operation in which they were apparently searching for drugs and weapons.
Meanwhile, the Attorney General of the state of Zacatecas told local media that five of the seven bodies located in two communities of Jerez (four bodies found on Thursday; the other three on Saturday) were positively identified following DNA tests of family members. Results for two of the victims, a woman and a 17-year-old, are still outstanding.
With these advances, it is a fact that the seven disappeared were executed—with gunshots to the head—and dumped in Jerez, about a week after having been taken from a house in Calera.