On the Michoacán Releases

Here's Jorge Fernández Menéndez:

The PGR didn't object to these releases because they assured off the record that there isn't sufficient evidence to convict them. That these people were detained based on testimony from protected witnesses and that those accusations couldn't be supported by documented proof, even though this was considered sufficient by the former PGR administration, and also by the federal judges, to summon the arraigo of the functionaries and then initiate the judicial proceedings. In reality, the PGR would be changing its criteria to investigate cases related to organized crime and everything indicates that they will no longer give credence to testimony from protected witnesses: this is no small issue, some 70 percent of the drug-trafficking cases include such testimony.

But there are also those who think that these releases are a reflection of political and electoral agreements being sewn together by the PAN and the PRD to compete in various states and spur some reforms in Congress. If this is all about revising the behavior of the PGR, the issue of the protected witnesses is debatable, although it would be acceptable, but if people's detention or liberation winds up depending on electoral agreements, this would be the worst side of justice.