Founder of Vigilante Group in Michoacan Gets 1-Year Sentence for Kidnapping Latin American Herald Tribune
go to original November 21, 2015

Hipolito Mora, leader of a self-defense movement, stands at the entrance of Apatzingan, in the Michoacan state of Mexico. (AP/Marco Ugarte)

Hipolito Mora Chavez, the founder of the vigilante movement in the western Mexican state of Michoacan, has been convicted of kidnapping and sentenced to one year in prison, judicial officials said.

The court found sufficient proof of Mora's involvement in the disappearance of a young man in the municipality of Yurecuaro in 2013, they said Thursday.

The defendant, however, accused Michoacan state Attorney General Jose Martin Godoy of pressuring the judge to hand down a guilty verdict in a case that otherwise would have been decided in his favor.

Mora, a native of the village of La Ruana, and a group of peasants took up arms against the Caballeros Templarios (Knights Templar) drug cartel on Feb. 24, 2013, and succeeded in driving the gang out of that hamlet.

President Enrique Peña Nieto subsequently sent troops and Federal Police units into Michoacan in January 2014 to suppress the conflict between the Templarios and the vigilantes.

Read the rest at Latin American Herald Tribune

Related: Self-Defense Leader José Mireles's Prison Release Anticipated for December 18 (Mexico Voices)

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