Guard arrested for torture in Tijuana prison riots
TIJUANA, Mexico — Mexican police caught a prison official who spent a year on the run from charges of killing a 19-year-old inmate, whose beating death sparked riots that left nearly two dozen dead, including two American prisoners.
Marco Antonio Ibarra, the chief guard at Tijuana's La Mesa State Penitentiary, was arrested in the northern city of Culiacan, where he was born and had been hiding for a year, said Martha Almaza, deputy attorney general for Baja California state.
Ibarra was brought to Tijuana on Friday and paraded before reporters. Authorities did not say when he was arrested.
Almaza said Ibarra ordered guards to take 10 prisoners into a storage room and beat them. She said Ibarra was trying to find out who owned drugs, cell phones and other prohibited items that had been discovered in one of the cells.
The abuse, which resulted in the young prisoner's death, provoked two uprisings over three days in September 2008. At least 23 inmates were killed, including two of the 200 Americans held at the prison at the time.
Ibarra faces homicide and torture charges. Another guard charged in the case is still at large.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Most Popular News
-
A.R. Rahman, Jennifer Hudson headline state dinner
It's an all-star lineup for Tuesday's first state dinner of the Obama White House: Oscar-winners Jennifer Hudson and A.R. Rahman headline the entertainment list.
-
Jet-winged adventurer ditches in Atlantic, unhurt
A Swiss adventurer trying to soar from Morocco to Spain on jet-powered wings ditched safely into the Atlantic on Wednesday after hitting turbulence and clouds so thick he could not tell if he was flying up or down.
-
Authorities: Hanged Ky. census worker killed self
When an eastern Kentucky census worker was found naked, bound with duct tape and hanging from a tree with "fed" scrawled on his chest, suspicion fell on the hardscrabble Appalachian area where bad news seems like a way of life.
-
Vicki Kennedy describes husband's cancer battle
The widow of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy told Oprah Winfrey in an interview broadcast Wednesday that even as her husband knew he was dying of brain cancer he had been "in training" to make sure he had enough strength to attend President Barack Obama's inauguration.
