The sister of a drug gang leader accused of murdering two Jesuit priests last year has identified a body found shot dead in northern Mexico as her brother, Mexican prosecutors said on Wednesday.
The murder of the two Jesuit priests in June last year shocked Mexico, and Jesuits said the suspect’s death, if confirmed, would prove that the Mexican government is unable to catch criminals and that it has lost control of parts of the country.
The body is believed to be that of accused killer Jose Noriel Portillo Gil — alias El Chueco, or “the crooked one.”
Despite nine months of supposed searches for Portillo Gil, the circumstances of his death suggest that he was executed by his own or a rival drug gang.
Portillo Gil’s gang was also implicated in the 2018 killing of a US citizen traveling in the area.
Police on Tuesday received a report about a dead body in the town of Choix, an area dominated by Sinaloa State’s drug cartel, Sinaloa chief prosecutor Cesar Jauregui said.
Diana Carolina Portillo, the suspect’s sister, identified the body of the man, who was believed to have been shot dead some time on Monday, Jauregui said.
“We cannot conclusively determine this case is closed until we have scientific proof,” Jauregui told a news conference.
However, the corpse was relatively fresh, found in a field only a day after the man was killed, and the face was intact, making the sister’s identification very plausible, he said.
JUSTICE
That Portillo Gil had been killed did not mean that justice had been done, said the Society of Jesus, as the Jesuits are known.
“If it is confirmed that this is the person implicated in the murder of the two Jesuit priests, his turning up dead can in no way be considered a triumph for justice, or a solution to the structural problem of violence” the Jesuits said in a statement on Wednesday in the Sierra Tarahumara region.
“On the contrary, the lack of an adequate legal process in the murder case would only imply the Mexican government has failed in its basic duties, and confirm that the authorities do not have control of the territory,” it said.
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and the Mexican Secretariat of National Defense had previously vowed to find Portillo Gil and bring him to justice.
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