Luis Donaldo Colosio after being shot twice in Tijuana in 1994 VÍCTOR FLOREZ
According to El Universal newspaper, the attorney general’s office has reopened the case of the 1994 assassination of presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio. According to information in the newspaper, the state department formed a group with prosecutors and department police officials to focus on the “comprehensive investigation into the events” that occurred in Tijuana, Baja California, during the PRI candidate’s campaign. The politician had just delivered a speech and was walking through the crowd when he was shot twice. Mario Aburto was convicted after confessing to the crime. However, the file later revealed inconsistencies and irregularities. EL PAÍS has contacted the prosecutor who has not yet confirmed the information.
Prosecutors, headed by Alejandro Gertz, assigned the case to prosecutor Abel Galván Gallardo, federal sources cited by El Universal say. Galván Gallardo is the former head of the special prosecutor for crimes of enforced disappearance. The group of prosecutors he heads has tasked with locating people of interest in the investigation and has requested that the case’s victims be registered in the National Victims Registry, the newspaper said. It has also requested copies of the records of the file and asked the President of the National Commission on Human Rights (CNDH), Rosario Piedra Ibarra, for copies of the complaints or reports of torture made by Mario Aburto.
In 2021, the CNDH requested the case be reopened. The Ombudsman’s office said at the time that the alleged killer was a victim of torture by prosecutors themselves and prison officials, and insisted the trial that led to Aburto’s conviction was irregular. Earlier, an investigation by Mexicans Against Corruption revealed inconsistencies in the Colosio case. The journalistic investigation revealed contradictory statements in the file, torture situations of the alleged perpetrator of the murder, pressure from the authorities and unknown documents showing contradictions between some of the key witnesses.
Much has been written about the murder of Colosio since 1994, when the PRI’s then-rising star presented itself as the party’s beacon of hope. Conspiracy theories about the Institutional Revolutionary Party’s role in the assassination, the pressures investigators would have faced, and mutual links to organized crime have permeated public opinion. So much so that these theories are sometimes as credible as the version that Aburto is to blame.
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