4 relatives of slain activist seek asylum
By Adriana Gómez Licón / El Paso Times
Posted: 12/29/2010 03:58:00 AM MST

Four family members of an activist gunned down outside the Chihuahua governor's palace fled Juárez and are now seeking asylum in El Paso, Mexican officials said.

Chihuahua state police escorted relatives of Marisela Escobedo, 52, to an international bridge on Dec. 18, two days after a gunman shot her in the head as she protested the judicial system that freed the confessed killer of her daughter RubÃ* Frayre Escobedo.

"They were really scared. They were nervous," Gustavo de la Rosa Hickerson said about Escobedo's family. De la Rosa, the ombudsman for the state human-rights commission in Juárez, witnessed the family's departure.

The members are the brother, granddaughter and two sons of Escobedo, said the spokesman for Chihuahua attorney general, Carlos González. He did not release their names.

"It was the decision of the family because they continued to be threatened," González said. "The state has always protected the family. The state never lost its guard." But Escobedo's relatives did not feel protected and decided to hide in El Paso, González said. They ran away from attacks that followed Escobedo's killing, de la Rosa said.

Six armed men set fire to a lumber yard owned by Escobedo's live-in boyfriend. They kidnapped and then killed the boyfriend's brother, Manuel Monge Amparán.

Officials have not drawn a connection between Escobedo's slaying and the arson or the killing of Monge. Still, right after the activist's funeral, her relatives fled Juárez and are now in El Paso.

Neither officials with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement nor Citizenship and Immigration Services responded to whether Escobedo's family was being detained, saying it was confidential information.

Carlos Spector, an El Paso attorney who handles cases of asylum seekers, said human-rights officials of Chihuahua state briefed him on the matter. Spector said he would like to take the case but has not become the lawyer of the family.

"This is a case made for political asylum," Spector said. "All of it shows the impunity." Spector said the fact that the state government escorted the family to the international bridge shows that it could no longer protect the family. He said it would become hard for the federal government to disqualify them as political refugees.

The horrifying tale of Escobedo and her family began in 2008. Her daughter, Frayre, went missing in the summer. Seeing that the case was not progressing, Escobedo became a self-made investigator. She chased her main suspect, Sergio Barraza, who was the boyfriend of Frayre, all the way to the state of Zacatecas.

Barraza and Frayre had lived together and had a daughter. Police arrested Barraza. He confessed to the murder and led agents to Frayre's body.

Police found Frayre's body, burned and dismembered, on June 18, 2009, in Juárez. In May, a state judge absolved Barraza of the crime, citing a lack of evidence.

Barraza said police had tortured him to confess that he was the killer. Escobedo mounted a campaign to seek the recapture and sentencing of Barraza.

A circuit judge decided later this year to revoke the absolution and to sentence Barraza. But it was too late: Barraza had become a fugitive. A Mexico supreme court decision is pending. "There was enormous inefficiency in the way the attorney general built the case," said human-rights commissioner de la Rosa.

Police did not videotape the confession and waited several days to go find Frayre's body, de la Rosa said.

http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_16961704