Suspect In Juarez Killings Returned To Mexico
EL PASO, Texas (AP) – An illegal immigrant who has been named as a suspect in the unsolved killings of as many as eight women in Ciudad Juarez was handed over to Mexican authorities Wednesday, hours after agreeing to leave the United States.
Edgar Alvarez Cruz, a Mexican national who was arrested on an immigration charge last month in Denver, waived any appeals to an immigration judge’s order that he be sent back to Mexico.
Hours after the court hearing, Alvarez Cruz was arrested by Mexican officials at the top of an international bridge that links the border cities and driven away in handcuffs in a red pickup truck. It was unclear what charges he faced.
Alvarez Cruz, 30, had been held in an El Paso immigration jail since shortly after his arrest. He did not make any comments during Wednesday’s hearing, where he was represented by an American lawyer.
When transferred to Mexican authority, Alvarez Cruz was wearing a T-shirt, denim cargo shorts and tennis shoes, contrasting sharply with the immigration jail uniform he wore in court.
Abraham Hinojos Rubio, Alvarez Cruz’s Mexican lawyer, said there is no evidence connecting the construction worker to the slayings in violence-plagued Juarez, which he said were discovered in November 2001.
“He is innocent,” Abraham Hinojos Rubio said in Spanish. Mexico Attorney General Daniel Cabeza de Vaca has previously said Alvarez Cruz fled the country while the investigation was ongoing, but Alvarez Cruz’s parents said the man paid a smuggler to sneak him into the United States in 2000 and has not returned to Mexico.
Fidel Alvarez Villamil, Alvarez Cruz’s father, said the family has receipts showing that the construction worker was in Denver in April 2001, and Hinojos Rubio said the slayings were discovered in November of that year. Family members said the first they heard of any investigation was in news reports last month, about five years after Alvarez Cruz left Mexico.
“We were surprised,” Alvarez Villamil said. “No one could have imagined this.” Alvarez Cruz’s mother, Manuela Cruz, said she fears that Mexican authorities will detain and torture him to get a confession.
“I fear the same thing that happened before,” Cruz said in Spanish, referring to claims by other suspects in the Juarez killings who said they were tortured before making false confessions.
Hinojos Rubio said it would be “foolish” for Mexican authorities to mistreat Alvarez Cruz, given the publicity surrounding his arrest and the ongoing investigation. The lawyer said Alvarez Cruz is willing to speak to investigators in Juarez to help clear his name.
A second man, Jose Francisco Granados de la Paz, has also been identified as a suspect in the case. Granados de la Paz is in U.S. custody, but it was unclear Wednesday where he is.
The eight killings are among about 100 since 1993 in which young women were sexually assaulted, strangled and dumped in the desert outside Juarez.
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By ALICIA A. CALDWELL Associated Press Writer
Associated Press Writer Olga Rodriguez contributed to this story from Monterrey, Mexico.
(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.) AP-NY-09-06-06 1754EDT
