Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
08MEXICO3595
2008-12-08 13:37:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Mexico
Cable title:  

PGR MAKES ITS CASE, AGAIN, ON BRAD WILL

Tags:  CONS PREL PGOV PHUM KJUS KCRM MX 
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C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 MEXICO 003595 

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/18/2028
TAGS: CONS PREL PGOV PHUM KJUS KCRM MX
SUBJECT: PGR MAKES ITS CASE, AGAIN, ON BRAD WILL

REF: MEXICO 3343

Classified By: Political Minister Counselor Charles V. Barclay.
Reason: 1.4 (b),(d).

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 MEXICO 003595

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/18/2028
TAGS: CONS PREL PGOV PHUM KJUS KCRM MX
SUBJECT: PGR MAKES ITS CASE, AGAIN, ON BRAD WILL

REF: MEXICO 3343

Classified By: Political Minister Counselor Charles V. Barclay.
Reason: 1.4 (b),(d).


1. (SBU) Summary. Mexico's Office of the Attorney General
(PGR) provided Emboffs with a three-hour brief on its
investigation into the death of Amcit journalist Brad Will
who was shot and killed in the course of civil unrest in
Oaxaca in October 2006. Much of what PGR presented tracked
with prior briefings. PGR officials called into question the
conclusions reached by Mexico's National Human Rights
Commission (CNDH) in its investigation maintaining CNDH
failed to take into consideration key evidence PGR had
collected. Instead, they presented the basis for their
contention that Will was killed by someone at close range and
the circumstantial evidence that led to their arrest of Juan
Manuel Martinez Moreno, a supporter of the Oaxacan People's
Assembly (APPO),for the murder. Emboffs urged PGR officials
to consider offering a presentation of their findings to the
family of Brad Will in the spirit of transparency but PGR
declined questioning the utility of such a meeting. End
Summary.

2. (U) On November 20, PGR's Coordinator for International
Affairs Adrian Franco, its Special Prosecutor for Crimes
Against Journalists Octavio Alberto Orellano Wiarco, its
assistant legal attache working Mexico's Embassy in the U.S.
Guillermo Fonseca, and Assistant Prosecutor Francisco Javier
Ribero Sanchez offered the Embassy's Consul General,
Department of Justice attachQ, and Deputy Political Counselor
an extensive brief on PGR's investigation into the killing of
Amcit journalist Brad Will that it hoped the State Department
would take into consideration in preparing its report to
Congress on the Will investigation. The PGR officials made
extensive reference to film taken by Will immediately prior
to his death, downloaded from the internet, as well to other
film and photographs taken the day of the shooting. They
also addressed a series of questions the Department had asked
us to raise regarding the investigation of the ensuing
judicial procedures.
The Case Against CNDH's Theory


3. (SBU) CNDH contends its analysis of forensic evidence
suggests Will was shot twice in rapid succession from a
distance of 35-50 meters from an angle that would place the
shooter behind a red truck located about that distance in
front of Will. PGR rejects this theory principally on three
grounds.
-- First, PGR officials recall that Will was shot by a 38
revolver. Working off Will's own film footage, PGR reenacted
the scene Will was facing when he was shot with a view to
assessing the prospects of someone getting off two shots at
Will from behind the red truck he was facing. Taking into
consideration the array of people between Will and the truck,
PGR concludes it would have been almost impossible for
someone to get off two accurate shots with a 38 revolver from
that range.
-- Second, PGR officials note on the film that several
adherents of APPO walk directly in front of the truck from
which CNDH claims shots were being fired. They manifest no
concern about a shooter or shooters behind the truck
suggesting to PGR officials that no one was shooting from
there.
-- Third, CNDH claims the second bullet entered Will as he
fell forward and twisted to the left. PGR maintains Will
fell on his back and not in the fashion alleged by CNDH.
Replaying its version of the Will tape, PGR officials note no
evidence of a second shot fired in quick succession of the
first. Instead, its investigation suggests Will was shot
from up close and only after his shirt had been rolled up
after the first shot. As evidence, they claim the second
bullet passed through his shirt twice. They also maintain
that the doctor who performed the autopsy on Will disagreed
with CNDH's findings regarding the second bullet concluding
instead that Will was shot at an angle that suggested the
shooter was standing over him and in relatively close
proximity.
The Case in Support of PGR's Theory

4. (C) PGR's reenactment of the crime scene suggests Will
was shot at close range as he panned right with his camera.
PGR officials note that Will's footage captures the image of
a young male, directly in front of him, who seemingly makes
eye contact with someone to Will's right and then quickly
moves out of sight immediately before Will was killed.
Will's film never captures the shooter but it does capture a
journalist crouched against the wall who would have observed
Will being shot if PGR's theory were true. PGR maintains
this journalist works for the leftist newspaper La Jornada
but provided no useful information in his declaration.

5. (C) Will's film captures several APPO members armed with
small handguns. In fact, immediately before Will is shot, an
APPO member who appears armed with a small handgun approaches
Karol Ivan Llescas Resendiz, a reporter with Televisa,
immediately to Will's left and is caught on tape apparently

MEXICO 00003595 002 OF 003


telling the journalist to stop filming. At that very moment
Will is shot. The events happened in such quick succession
that Llescas initially thought he had been shot. Llescas
told PGR that he saw two individuals -- one dressed
completely in black -- in close proximity to Will right after
he (Will) was shot. Llescas later identified Martinez by
photograph as the person dressed in black that he had seen
close to Will.

6. (C) According to PGR, a local resident of Oaxaca,
Alfredo Feria Perez, claims he was in the vicinity of Will at
the time Will was shot. He did not see the person who shot
Will but stated that he saw someone who owns two cars -- a
black Jeep Cherokee and a light brown Golf -- standing right
next to Will after he was shot. He later identified, per a
photograph PGR showed him, that Martinez was this person.
After Will was shot, Feria said that he saw Martinez pass
someone a small black bag and say, "one already fell" before
running down the street. PGR maintains that after he made
his declaration, Feria was approached by the Oaxacan Popular
Indigenous Council (CIPO),an organization with ties to APPO,
about attending one of its meetings and offered a job by the
WorkersQ, Party (PT),another APPO supporter, suggesting to
PGR that APPO was concerned about what Feria knew and sought
to compromise his testimony.

7. (SBU) Addressing Department questions, PGR officials
reported that they had not recovered bullets from any other
victims that would suggest they were shot by the same weapon
that killed Will. They maintained that they had re-examined
the case against the three Oaxacan state police officers
arrested and released initially but found insufficient
evidence to press charges against them. They also said that
they tracked down individuals photographed or filmed with
weapons the day of Will's killing, but found none in
possession of a 38 revolver, the weapon investigators
concluded was used to kill Will. All claimed that they had
fired their weapons in the air and not at the protesters.
PGR's Take on PHR's Report

8. (SBU) At the request of the Will family, the NGO
Physicians for Human Rights visited Mexico in March 2008 to
review evidence. Its report concluded one of the bullets
that shot Will had ricocheted off of something red before
hitting Will. Following up on the PHR's report, PGR reported
that one of its experts tested the red paint against
everything red located in the vicinity of the Will shooting
and found no match. Instead, the expert found that the paint
corresponded with nail polish the ballistics expert examining
the bullets had used to distinguish it from the other bullet.
When the investigators interviewed the Oaxacan expert in
ballistics who produced the first report on the bullet
removed from Will's body, he claimed he had painted the
bullet with red nail polish. PGR accounted for the damaged
state of the bullet as described in the PHR report noting
that the bullet had been lodged in Will's spine and was
damaged upon removal by the technician who performed the
autopsy. PGR says that it has a video of the autopsy that
substantiates this claim.

9. (SBU) PGR officials maintained that they took into
consideration both PHR and CNDH's reports before they
arrested Martinez for Will's killing. In fact, Orellana said
that the prosecutors went back to PGR's experts with both
reports asking them if they wanted to reconsider their
findings. They reportedly insisted on standing by their
original conclusions. While PHR's report has not been
formally "ratified" by its authors for authentication
purposes, it was presented by PGR to the Oaxacan court along
with all other evidence in the case, and much was part of the
record considered by the judged who determined that there was
sufficient evidence to detain Martinez and proceed with his
prosecution. As part of the record, the PHR report also
would be reviewed by any judicial authority ruling on this
case in the future. PGR's Franco reported that the Attorney
General's office was preparing a point by point refutation of
PHR's report for our benefit and would share it with us when
it was completed.
PGR Claims CNDH Report Lacking Key Elements

10. (C) While CNDH did not publish its report until
September 26, it claims that it concluded its investigation
in June. PGR maintains that CNDH's report consequently did
not take into account three pieces of evidence that emerged
after June. Separately, CNDH declined to take into
consideration PGR's reenactment of the Will crime scene and
the testimony offered by Feria.
-- On August 28, 2008, Televisa reporter Llescas identified
Martinez as an individual he had last seen in the vicinity of
Will when he was shot.
-- In August 2008, the journalist who took the photo of an
alleged policemen wearing a red shirt shooting in the same
street where Will was killed made a declaration that he took
that photo twenty minutes before Will was killed and not
immediately prior to Will's shooting as initially reported.
PGR also notes that the red truck blocking the street on
Will's tape was not evident in the photographer's picture of
the armed policeman reinforcing PGR's argument that the

MEXICO 00003595 003 OF 003


photographer did not took his picture of the armed policemen
immediately before Will was shot.
-- On August 29, 2008, the Oaxacan ballistics expert who
examined the bullet removed from Will's body reported that he
had painted the bullet with red nail polish.
PGR's Next Brief?

11. (C) PGR's Franco signaled PGR's willingness to provide
another brief on its investigation to Department officials
either in Washington or Mexico City. Emboffs assured him
that we would share the essential elements of PGR's brief
with Washington officials and let them decide whether another
was necessary. Embassy's Consul General, however, urged PGR
to consider offering the Will family a briefing in the
interest of transparency. Franco initially signaled a
willingness to consider this but in a follow on conversation
with the Consul General said that he thought this kind of
contact with the Will family would not/not be useful given
its "attitude" toward Mexican authorities. If we thought
that family's attitude might change, then the GOM could
reconsider offering such a brief. Franco also presumed that
the family would want to include its lawyer in the
conversation -- a proposition the PGR/GOM would find
problematic.

12. (C) Comment. Both CNDH and PGR rely heavily upon their
respective versions of the Will tape to support their
hypotheses regarding his killing. However, whereas CNDH
claims to have a copy of the original that it received from
the family, PGR concedes its version was downloaded from the
internet. PGR's brief raises questions about the credibility
of CNDH's conclusion that Will was shot by someone from a
range of over 35 meters. It is also hard to deny that it
would have been far easier for someone to shoot and kill Will
from a close range -- a conclusion supported by the forensic
evidence gathered by PGR's experts. Yet, PGR's case lacks
two essential elements Q) a direct eyewitness to Will's
killing and a compelling motive beyond its claim that an APPO
member may have killed Will because he was filming its
skirmish with the police or out of an attempt to create a
cause cQl
bre. As such, PGR's case rests on circumstantial
evidence which may well prove sufficient to convict Martinez
in a Oaxacan court but may prove lacking in the court of
public opinion. Martinez' lawyer has already raised a
challenge to the case in district court, only the first of
what we anticipate will be numerous challenges.
Visit Mexico City's Classified Web Site at
http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/wha/mexicocity and the North American
Partnership Blog at http://www.intelink.gov/communities/state/nap /
BASSETT