42
Commission and the Inter-American Court. In said statements, Messrs. Cabrera
and Mr. Montiel mentioned acts of cruel, inhumane and degrading treatments or
alleged acts of torture to which they were submitted during the days they remained
under arrest.
112. From the statements of Messrs. Cabrera and Montiel during the criminal
process, in general terms, it was reported: i) pulling of the testicles blows; ii)
electric shocks; iii) blows to different parts of the body, such as the shoulders,
abdomen and head; iv) that they were blindfolded and bound; v) that they were
placed forming a cross according to the sun’s location; vi) that they were blinded
by a bright light; vii) that they received death threats by means of weapons; and
viii) that Tehuacán soda was forced up their noses.147
113. The Court notes that the domestic tribunals considered Messrs. Cabrera and
Montiel’s testimonies as inconsistent, and thus, detracted value from them.148
Nevertheless, the Court considers that the differences between each testimony
given by Messrs. Cabrera and Montiel cannot be considered as contradictions
bound, that they gave them nothing to eat, and that where they were lying on the ground, they dug
with their elbows and they drank the water that they collected in this way, because they were not giving
them water..” “[O]nce at the battalion’s base, they continued to beat him and […] on Thursday a
drunken soldier arrived and he continued to beat and torture them[…]” Mr. Montiel Flores attested that
when he was detained at the Pizotla River, “one of the soldiers pulled his pants down and pulled on his
testicles […] another soldier held him from the jaw and pulled him, another soldier was leaning on his
shoulders and apparently dropped with his knees down on his stomach, that the three soldiers were
doing this at the same time and they were telling [him] to say that […] he belonged to the EPR and that
he should talk, because otherwise they said they knew who [his] family was […], that they wet him to
give him electrical shocks." “Later, [at the 40th Battalion], they separated [them] and took him to a
room and there they wanted to force him to say that he carried weapons and that he belonged to a
guerrilla group […]..” That night, “they took them and put them all tied up […] in a military vehicle, […]
putting the rifle muzzle to the declarant’s head, near the nape, and a foot on the back, telling them that
they would bring them to jail..” Cf. Expansion of the statements of Messrs. Cabrera and Montiel of
December 23, 1999, supra note 67, folios 10360 to 10362 and 10364 to 10366.
147
Mr. Cabrera Garcia stated that: “[a]t night, they took us out, they poured sparkling water in
[my] nostrils, they pulled [by] my hair, and that Tehuacán drink was so strong, that […] [I] felt that it
was coming up through [my] whole nose and head, [I] was suffocating so they would hit [me] in the
head to revive [me] and while [I] came to and reacted, they were doing the same to Rodolfo.” Cf.
Affidavit of Mr. Teodoro Cabrera Garcia of March 4, 2010 (record on the merits, volume III, folio 1193).
148
In relation to the contradictions that the victims are allegedly guilty of, the Unitary Court held
that: “they are inadmissible because, independently of their vagueness and imprecision, they do not
indicate which judicial and ministerial authority they are referring to; the physical and moral tortures
which they refer to do not spring from the preliminary investigation, given that […] the various
statements they made before the Agent of the Public Prosecutor’s office in Arcelia, Guerrero, the Federal
Public Prosecutor’s Office in Coyuca de Catalán, of the same office and the Criminal Court of First
Instance of Coyuca de Catalán were all rendered according to the law, […]. In particular, the lower court
pointed out that the main contradictions were evident in that: “while RODOLFO MONTIEL FLORES
alleged, in his initial statement, that one of the soldiers got angry when they fed him and he wanted to
wash his hands, threatening him with smashing his head with a stone, Teodoro Cabrera Garcia, in his
expansion of the preliminary statement, stated that they gave them nothing to eat and that they even
used their elbows to dig holes to fill up with river water to drink; hence, while RODOLFO MONTIEL
FLORES asserted that, in the presence of his neighbors and relatives, they were tortured by the soldiers,
Cabrera Garcia assured that when he was arrested, there were already lots of people beating him; that,
while Teodoro Cabrera Garcia sustained that “on the same day of his arrest”, they took him to a field to
torture him, RODOLFO MONTIEL sustained that during ‘the whole Sunday’, they were at the river and
that 'on the next Monday, they took them to the mountain' and then, they tortured them; this coupled
with the fact that Teodoro Cabrera Garcia does not refer to electrical shocks, while RODOLFO MONTIEL
FLORES does refer to this; and while Teodoro Cabrera denies having signed the documents prepared by
the soldiers, RODOLFO MONTIEL FLORES asserted that, given he was subjected to torture, he was
forced to sign the document prepared by the 40th Battalion.”.” Cf. Judgment handed down on August
21, 2002 by the First Unitary Court of the Twenty-First Circuit (Criminal Docket number 406/2000)
(record of annexes to the answer to the application, volume XXXI, folios 15139 and 15140, and 15152
to 15155).
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