Mexico City District Judge Yazmín Eréndira Ruiz granted a permanent stay to former Attorney General Jesús Murillo Karam against being charged with torture, violation of the administration of justice, and forced disappearance, all related to the Ayotzinapa case. The Sixteenth District Court for Amparo Matters, of which Ruiz sits, also declared itself incompetent to continue the case and ordered the case to be forwarded to the Second District Court for Amparo Matters in Mexico City, where Murillo Karam's appeal against the "illegal detention" he claims to have been subjected to on August 19 was heard in the first instance.
The injunction granted to the Hidalgo politician pauses the criminal proceedings against him, but does not imply his immediate release, given that the Attorney General's Office (FGR) has the power to appeal the ruling so that the case can be referred to a collegiate court, which would determine whether to confirm, modify, or overturn the first-instance ruling. The erratic conduct of the Attorney General's Office in recent events makes it hard to guarantee that this appeal will be granted, but it is clear that there is an absolute obligation to exhaust all available resources to reverse this blunder by the Judiciary and avoid enormous damage to the already precarious progress of the investigation.
What cannot be overlooked is that all known elements point to the responsibility for the cover-up of the Iguala atrocity involving the former governor of Hidalgo, a senator and federal deputy for the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), and that the operation was orchestrated to prevent the truth from being revealed about what happened on the night of September 26, 2014, in that Guerrero city. As prosecutor, Murillo Karam spearheaded the maneuvers to construct a false version based on testimony obtained through torture in his offices and the planting of evidence that had to be validated. It is unequivocal that in this role, he systematically and perhaps irremediably obstructed the administration of justice
