Disclaimer

Disclaimer: I am providing the content on this blog solely for the reader's general information. This blog contains my personal commentary on issues that interest me. Unless otherwise stated, the views expressed on this blog are mine alone, and not the views of any law firm with which I am in any way associated or any other member of any such law firm. Nothing on this blog is intended to be a solicitation of, or the provision of, legal advice, nor to create an attorney-client relationship with me or any law firm. Please view my "Full Disclaimer" statement at the bottom of the page for additonal information..

Monday, December 2, 2013

Former Teenage Cartel Hitman Returns To US/San Antonio



A former teenage cartel hitman, who admitted to killing four people while employed by the former Beltran-Leyva Cartel in southern Mexico has finished a three-year juvenile sentence in Mexico (the maximum allowed for juveniles under Mexican law) and has returned to the US, where he is a citizen.  The now-17 year-old was reunited with family members in San Antonio.  The Houston Chronicle

Reports that it is unclear whether he faces charges in the US.  The young man Edgar, Jimenez Lugo was trying to flee Mexico in 2010 when he was caught and admitted to killing four people whose beheaded bodies were found in Morelos hanging from a bridge. The young man claimed that he was forced into the cartel by drug traffickers when he was 11 and participated in the killings when drugged and under threat.

He was born in San Diego but raised in Mexico by a grandmother. 

The interior secretary of Morelos State said it wasn’t clear if the young man had been rehabilitated because his crimes were so severe.  He’s being taken to a residential support facility in San Antonio.

We’ve posted before on the serious issue of teenage cartel hitmen on the US border committing crimes in the US.  The post, and the article it quotes are worth reading again.  This is an unusual story of a former hitman coming back after serving a sentence for a crime he committed while so young.  Hopefully this young man’s story is true, that he was forced into the gang.  And hopefully he can be rehabilitated, like teenage soldiers in the west African civil wars have been.  (See memoir by Ishmael Beah).

 He obviously needs lots of help.  And the drug war that bred the type of violence he was forced or drawn into needs to come to an end, either forcibly as the Mexican government is doing by killing the leaders of the Beltran-Leyva cartel that used to employ him, or with more sensible drug enforcement policies on this side of the border.

Full article and picture credit: http://www.chron.com/news/texas/article/Teen-cartel-killer-released-in-Mexico-goes-to-US-5013310.php?cmpid=hpbn

No comments:

Post a Comment