The Tamaulipas Prosecutor’s Office confirms the delivery of Alan N, identified as part of the convoy that attacked the migrants, in 2021. The justice system already sentenced 12 agents for the murders last year
The United States has extradited to Mexico Alan N, a former agent of the Special Operations Group (Gopes) of the Tamaulipas police, for the migrant massacre of Camargo, perpetrated in January 2021. The State Prosecutor’s Office has confirmed to this newspaper the delivery. The agency accuses Alan N of the murder of 19 people, most of them migrants, among other crimes. The justice of the State of Tamaulipas sentenced 12 policemen for the massacre last year.
Alan N is part of the group of eight policemen who have not yet been tried. In fact, the agent is the first detainee of this group. The other seven are still fugitives. The Tamaulipas Prosecutor’s Office learned of him thanks to the testimony of one of the convicted policemen, Ismael Vázquez, who agreed to collaborate in exchange for the investigating agency lowering the charges against him.
According to Vázquez, Alan N was the commander of one of the four Gopes vehicles that acted that day in that border area of Tamaulipas with Texas. Specifically, the agent was riding shotgun in one of the mambas, a kind of urban tanks of the state police. Vázquez was on board the same vehicle as him. The repentant agent says that his vehicle arrived at the scene of the crime when the attack had started and other colleagues were shooting.
“When we got out, Alan shot forward, also Gasparini, who was on the post. They thought they were attacking us,” Vázquez says in his statement. He refers to the moment when his mamba arrived at the scene of the crime and everyone got out. When he says the post, he means the agent who was on top of the vehicle, in charge of the machine gun fixed to the roof. “Alan made about eight shots, more or less. From my unit they were the only ones who shot,” he says.
The testimony continues. Vázquez refers to a conversation between Alan N and the post. “Alan said to him ‘what are you waiting for? Shoot’. Gasparini answered, ‘but I don’t see anything’, Alan said, ‘you shoot’. And he shot. He made like three detonations. I saw,” he continues, “that everyone was shooting at the truck that was in front, which I managed to see that it had bullet holes. But from that truck no one was shooting. Those from the units behind were also shooting, but I don’t know how many, because I was always looking forward. Then I heard Alan order Gasparini to stop shooting,” he details.
In front, as the collaborating witness explains, there was a truck full of bullet holes. Of the two in which the migrants were traveling, the policemen shot almost exclusively at one of them. Many of the victims were traveling in it. Of the 19, two were Mexican, supposedly the guides of the migrants, or their traffickers; one was from El Salvador and the rest from Guatemala. Many died on the spot, others were finished off after the first attack.
Vázquez says that, right after the first burst, Alan N asked him to accompany him. “We went to where the pickup truck was,” he says, referring to the one that was full of bullet holes. “I saw that in the bed there was a blanket, a sheet, underneath something was moving. In the cabin something was moving too.” They were the migrants who had survived, dying. His colleagues said that others had fled, so Alan N ordered Vázquez and another agent to go look for them.
The story concludes by narrating how Alan N, Rocha and the rest of the commanders of the vehicles meet to decide their next steps. According to Vázquez, after the conclave, “more detonations were heard, like 10 shots. It had to be one of them who finished them off, those of Rocha’s unit.” Other colleagues sprayed fire on the bodies of the migrants in the truck. Then they set them on fire.
Even today, after the first trial for the Camargo case ended, the motive of the agents is unknown. It is not known why they attacked the migrants. Was it perhaps a confusion, did they think they were criminals? Or was it a punishment for not complying with the criminal regulations of the border, which demand the payment of fees to the migrants who seek the north? Be that as it may, the arrest of Alan N is a breakthrough and could shed light on these and other issues, of a case that stands out in the black history of Mexico.
Source: El Pais
