Triumphant, Special Prosecutor for Past Crimes Ignacio Carrillo Prieto said, "There is no way out," for former President Luis Echeverría following a Supreme Court ruling Wednesday opening him to genocide charges. For the first time in history, Carrillo Prieto said, a former Mexican president will stand trial for crimes against humanity.
He said there was no legal possibility for Echeverría to use an injunction to delay the trial or use his age to shield him from the charges.
Since President Vicente Fox named him as special prosecutor in 2002, Carrillo Prieto has tried to pin the disappearances of leftist students and activists in the 1960's and 70's on former officials. The era of clandestine government repression is known as the "Dirty War."
However, his efforts so far have been unsuccessful.
In an interview with the Associated Press, Carrillo Prieto said there was still work to be done.
"I feel content, but not satisfied," he said. "It's not a victory, it's a triumph, it's an advance."
He called the ruling "part of a general current sweeping Latin America" in which governments have joined the citizenry in demanding that former authorities be held accountable for past crimes.
Justice José Ramón Cossio, who voted to allow the genocide charges to go forward, said the decision set a historic precedent but it was only the beginning as far as the case was concerned.
"What will be the concrete consequences? That's up to the prosecutors' office first," he said.
