Judge Guadalupe Flores Rocha sentenced the catechist of the Diocese of San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Pedro Cortés, and the evangelical Diego Mendoza, to 110 years in prison each. The two indigenous people from Pantelhó are the co-accused -along with the priest Marcelo Pérez, murdered last October 20- of the disappearance of 19 people.
In a virtual hearing, the judge accepted as valid evidence a video that circulated on social networks where it is not accredited that Pedro Cortés, Diego Mendoza and the priest Marcelo Pérez were present; she also authorized “indirect testimonies,” that is, from people who were not present when 19 people were taken to the center of the town of Pantelhó before their disappearance, explained the public defender, Cecilio Gómez.
Private attorneys for the two indigenous men, and the Indigenous Litigation and Human Rights Training Clinic (Clifodh), explained that the trial had several violations of due process, such as preventing them from having an adequate defense counsel and the possibility for advisors and family members to enter the hearings. They informed that they will challenge the sentence.
“The conviction and sentence to Pedro Cortés López and Diego Mendoza Cruz would have also been for Presbyter Marcelo Pérez Pérez, accused of the same crime, had he not been murdered on October 20, 2024. In fact, this is a posthumous conviction and sentence,” they said.
Regarding the detainees, José Avilés, Jesuit priest and director of the Bachajón Mission, to which Pantelhó belongs, insisted that both Pedro Cortés and Diego Mendoza, “both from their faith and religion, their work for truth, justice, human rights and peace, always seeking that situations be resolved through dialogue and truth and justice within the law. They are tireless promoters and builders of peace, from non-violence in their region.”
It should be recalled that in August 2021, Pedro Cortés and Diego Mendoza were named in an assembly as members of the Government Council that was formed in Pantelhó, after a group of armed self-defense groups expelled people who were linked to members of organized crime, among them the municipal president Raquel Trujillo, who is now a fugitive from justice.
The disappearance of the 21 people occurred on July 26, 2021 – one month before Pedro Cortés and Diego Mendoza became councilmen – when residents of the municipality detained the 21 after accusing them of various crimes and murders.
The population asked the soldiers of the Mexican Army and the Attorney General’s Office to receive them in order to present them before a judge, but the uniformed men refused, at which point the villagers became upset and took them away in an unknown direction, after which they disappeared.
Months after this event, relatives of the disappeared accused Diego Mendoza and Pedro Cortés, as well as the priest Marcelo Pérez -who at that time was part of a Reconciliation Commission for the municipality-, of having personally detained and disappeared the 21. The Attorney General’s Office arrested the two indigenous people and issued an arrest warrant against the priest Marcelo Pérez.During the trial, Judge Guadalupe Flores Rocha prevented the private attorneys of the detainees from presenting their defense, making it impossible to present evidence indicating that Diego Mendoza, Pedro Cortés and Marcelo Pérez were not at the scene of the crime.
Original article and photos by Ángeles Mariscal posted by Chiapas Paralelo on March 5, 2025.
Translation by Schools for Chiapas.
Trial against former Pantelhó councilmen riddled with irregularities, they accuse
San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chis. The trial by which the former president and former councilman of the municipal council of Pantelhó, Pedro Cortés López and Diego Mendoza Cruz, respectively, were sentenced to 110 years in prison “is plagued with irregularities,” affirmed the Indigenous Litigation and Human Rights Training Clinic (Clifodh).
It added that Judge Guadalupe Flores Rocha “deferred on 14 occasions the beginning of the oral hearing for various reasons such as the request of the public defender, the lack of data in the investigation file, mechanical failures of the transport unit of the prison of El Amate, impediments to the transfer of the accused to San Cristóbal de Las Casas because the date coincided with the release of other defendants, requests or impossibility of the victims’ counsel, etcetera.”
In a press release, it stated that the above “violates the formalities of due process, since their right to speedy trial was obstructed, their human rights were violated and the clarification of the facts in the oral trial was delayed,” in addition to the fact that “the provisions of article 16 of the National Code of Criminal Procedures were violated and the principles of the new criminal system contemplated in article 20 of the Political Constitution of the United Mexican States were not applied or respected”.
He stressed that “this not only constitutes a clear violation of the provisions of the Constitution, but also evidences the bad practices of the judges in deferring the hearings, delaying the process for the parties,” while clarifying that “the deferral of the hearings is not a rule, but an exception, as established in article 20, section X, of the Constitution, which states that the principles enshrined in this article must be observed and guaranteed prior to the oral trial hearing.”
However, he remarked, “Judge Guadalupe Flores Rocha completely ignored these principles on repeated occasions. Finally, the trial began on November 12, but with numerous procedural irregularities. On August 6, 2024, when the oral trial began, the judge gave the floor to the Prosecutor’s Office to present its opening arguments. A poorly done exposition, elaborating a priori judgments and conclusions and showing as investigation folder information from the internet, from the conventional press and radio media, without expert reports or evidence and without showing the famous video on which they have based themselves to accuse Pedro Cortes and Diego Mendoza, in which, by the way, they never appear.”
Cortez López, a catechist of the diocese of San Cristóbal and candidate to the permanent deaconship, and Mendoza Cruz, who professes the evangelical religion, were sentenced to 110 years in prison for the disappearance of 18 residents of Pantelhó, which occurred on July 26, 2021, in the context of the irruption of the self-defense groups El Machete, a crime for which the Tsotsil priest Marcelo Pérez, who was shot to death last October 20 in San Cristóbal, had also been charged.
The Clifodh reiterated that the process against them “is plagued with irregularities” such as the fact that “the Prosecutor’s Office did not present any evidence to incriminate Pedro and Diego; they only presented false indications and witnesses, since they themselves claimed that ‘he told me’, ‘I knew’, ‘he was in Guadalajara’, ‘he was in San Cristóbal’ or ‘he was in Yajalón.’”
However, he added, “they say that they saw Pedro, Diego and Father Marcelo Perez Perez at the scene of the events in the midst of contradictory, confusing and full of lies narratives.”
He asked: “Is this the justice that we, the native peoples, deserve? We need indigenous judges in an indigenous district, we need public defenders who are indigenous, who speak our languages and understand our cultures. We need a thorough and urgent reform of the federal and state judiciary, but also a thorough reform of the Public Ministry and the Prosecutor’s Office”.
He affirmed that “it seems that the intention is to invent culprits to manage the conflict rather than to find the disappeared. It is necessary to search for and find the disappeared, those who disappeared before and those who disappeared on July 21, 2021 in Pantelhó, but not at the expense of innocent victims of hatred, revenge and resentment allied to a biased justice system.”
Original article by Elio Henríquez published in La Jornada on March 10, 2025.
Translation by Schools for Chiapas.