CAMPECHE — The State Attorney General’s Office (FGE) has filed charges of illegal deprivation of liberty, in the form of kidnapping, theft and damage to property, against the five taxi drivers arrested on October 31 when they protested at the State Institute of Transport (IET) for the alleged corruption of its director, Candelario Salomón Cruz, in the awarding of taxi plaques.
The five accused were presented Nov. 2 before Judge Miriam Collí Rodríguez at an initial hearing in which the charges against them were made public.
However, the resolution of their legal situation was postponed until Tuesday Nov. 7, when the hearing was to resume, since the five requested the extension of the constitutional term.
The judge imposed as an early precautionary measure the informal preventive detention until the legal situation is resolved.
The five drivers, including their leader Danilo Martín Echeverría Pereyra, were arrested Tuesday Oct. 31 in a violent operation in which riot police repressed a protest of taxi operators and collectives of the municipalities of Escárcega and Champotón at the gates of the EIT in this capital.
The protesters demanded to be taken care of by Salomón Cruz, whom they accused of distorting the allocation of plaques, since these, they alleged, have been offered to the highest bidder without respecting the operators who have been waiting up to 15 years for a concession.
The official sent to tell them that he would receive only a commission of representatives, who had no time to organize the dissatisfied.
The drivers and their families were stationed at the doors of the EIT, where they were less than half an hour, because the riot police cornered and attacked them.
The balance of the fray was five detainees, including Echeverría Pereyra; in addition to several people beaten, including reporters and bystanders passing through the site, as well as material damage to the facilities of the unit and parked vehicles.
Source: proceso.com.mx