Mireya Cuellar and Antonio Heras
correspondents
Newspaper La Jornada
Thursday February 9, 2023, p. eleven
Tijuana, BC., Twenty-eight years after the murder of Luis Donaldo Colosio Murrieta, then candidate of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) for the Presidency of the Republic, the first lawyers for Mario Aburto Martínez, convicted of the murder, were summoned to appear by the Attorney General of the Republic (FGR) as witnesses.
In a summons dated January 26, signed by a Public Ministry agent attached to the special investigation team for the Colosio case, two former presidents of the Emilio Rabasa Bar Association were summoned: Javier Alfonso Carbajal Machado and Marco Antonio Mackliz Mercado.
Aburto denounced torture and violation of human rights during his capture in Lomas Taurinas, after the murder of Luis Donaldo Colosio, on March 23, 1994, when the candidate began a proselytizing tour of Baja California.
sedated and schooled
The lawyers are not the first to appear after so many years. Last week the former Human Rights attorney in the entity, José Luis Pérez Canchola, was also called to testify before the FGR.
In a letter published on the 25th anniversary of the murder, Pérez Canchola stated that he witnessed Aburto’s statement at the offices of the then Attorney General’s Office in Tijuana.
I can affirm that this character arrived at the interrogation room sedated and instructed to refuse to answer the questions of the Public Ministry agent
said Perez Canchola.
Even though his turn to testify is scheduled for Thursday, Mackliz, who still practices as a trial lawyer, appeared at the FGR to accompany his colleague Carbajal, who testified yesterday.
The appearance was attended by representatives of the central offices of the National Human Rights Commission.
Both lawyers expressed that they were not completely sure of the reasons for which they were summoned by the prosecution. However, they considered that it is partly a political question, due to the proximity of the electoral processes in the state of Mexico and the presidential contest of 2024.
