Judge Frees Suspect in Mexican ‘Dirty War’

MEXICO CITY — A judge on Saturday freed a former state attorney general arrested days ago in connection with the disappearance of six leftist farmers in the 1970s, according to a special prosecutor’s office investigating past crimes by government officials.

The release was a setback for prosecutors pursuing crimes of the so-called dirty war of the 1960s and 1970s, during which Mexican government agents used drastic means to crack down on peaceful protesters as well as leftist rebels who had carried out kidnappings and bank robberies.

Special federal prosecutor Ignacio Carrillo Prieto alleged that in 1974, former Hidalgo state Atty. Gen. Alejandro Straffon had improperly released the six militants from state custody into the hands of federal security officials. The six were never seen again in public.

The government had linked the six farmers to a group called the Brigada Campesina de los Lacandones, an armed group the government had linked to at least one kidnapping.

Straffon was one of four former government officials charged in the activists’ disappearance. He was released on Saturday morning after a judge ruled there was insufficient evidence, said Eduardo Maldonado, a spokesman for the special prosecutor’s office.

The arrest warrant for Straffon was issued this month in Mexico City after a judge in Hidalgo state had refused to order the detention.

President Vicente Fox appointed Carrillo to investigate government crimes against activists and massacres of student demonstrators in 1968 and 1971.