Translated by Valor for Borderland Beat
In early 2013, Dr. José Manuel Mireles Valverde took up arms to repel Los Caballeros Templarios in Michoacán. He helped the federal government by recovering territories that had been lost to organized crime, but he didn’t accept to bend to the will of the then Federal Commissioner Alfredo Castillo Cervantes. It cost him prison in June 2014…and he will remain there.
Dr. José Manuel Mireles Valverde, founder and former leader of the autodefensas in Michoacán will not leave the federal prison in Hermosillo, Sonora, where he has been held since June 27, 2014.
Ignacio Mendoza Jiménez, his lawyer, said that measures will be taken to protect the former leader of the autodefensas in Michoacán regarding this operative.
Mireles Valverde was sent to prison after having publicly denounced the collusion between organized crime and the PRI government of Michoacán, then led by Fausto Vallejo Figueroa. The main cause of his imprisonment is attributed to the refusal to join the Fuerza Rural (Rural Force), the police force thatAlfredo Castillo Cervantes integrated
According to information by Zeta, a unitary court in Guadalajara, Jalisco, in aid of federal Michoacán judicial authorities, confirmed on June 2nd the refusal to order the dismissal of the criminal case that has kept Dr. José Manuel Mireles imprisoned. The decision was rendered in the auxiliary logbook 221/2016 by Isidro Avelar Gutiérrez, Judge of the Seventh Circuit Court of the Auxiliary Unit Center of the Third District, in the state of Jalisco.
The ruling confirmed the decision handed down last January by the Fifth District Court in the state of Michoacán, based in Uruapan, Michoacán, through which unfounded the dismissal of the criminal case 137/2014 brought against Mireles.
The judge ordered the return of the original criminal mention (158/2016) with the verdict referred to the Second Unitary Court of the Eleventh Circuit Court based in Morelia, the authority which acted on his aid.
Dr. José Manuel Mireles Valverde will remain imprisoned in the Federal Social Readaptation Center #11 in Hermosillo.
Mireles, founder of the autodefensas of Tepalcatepec, and other followers of the movement who were against insecurity and the presence of Los Caballeros Templarios, were detained on June 27, 2014 in the municipality of Lázaro Cárdenas in an operation where federal and military forces participated in, because he was allegedly in possession of weapons and drugs.
Source: Sin Embargo
