Thursday, December 16, 2010

The Inconvenient Brother: Julio Godoy Toscano loses congressional immunity

The Mexican lower house of congress voted to remove the fuero or immunity from legal persecution from the "inconvenient" (half)brother of Governor Leonel Gody, Julio Godoy Toscano, national deputy for the PRD. The vote was massive: 384-2, with 21 abstentions. Godoy, who reportedly has already removed his things from his office in San Lázaro, thus lost his legislative immunity and can face the criminal charges against him presented by the PGR, the attorney general's office. Most of the PRD deputies voted as well in favor: The party wants to get this case over as soon as possible, to avoid the negative publicity ahead of the upcoming gubernatorial elections in Michoacán last year. With the fuero removed, hopefully Mexicans will know eventually whether Godoy Toscano is indeed guilty, or if this is, as Godoy himself has argued, a political persection.

Guerrero: The wife did it, or persecution of Armando Chavarría's widow?

I've written before about the murder of PRD legislator Armando Chavarría in Guerrero last year.
Now, another turn of events: The state prosecutor's office have ordered an investigation of the assets of Chavarría's widow, Martha Obeso Cázares, specifically properties in her name. One of the lines of investigation of Chavarría's  murder is, to be sure, that his wife did it, though so far no evidence has surfaced in public. Obeso Cázares claims it is a pure persecution by the attorney general's office and Governor Zeferino Torreblanca, with the aim to intimidate her and to divert the investigation of the real killers.
Did Chavarría's widow really do it? Or is this just the revenge of Torreblanca for all her critiques of him, his administration, and the investigation of her husband's murder?