Veracruz Governor Cuitláhuac García. Photo: Google

By KELIN DILLON

According to a radio broadcast by Mexican journalist Ciro Gómez Leyva on Tuesday, June 20, local Veracruz judges were allegedly ordered by President Magistrate of the Superior Court of Justice Lisbeth Aurelia Jiménez to consult with Jiménez before issuing any judicial amparos, under the penalty of imprisonment.

Jiménez’s order to the local judges purportedly came at the behest of close friend Veracruz Governor Cuitláhuac García, a chain of command that now calls the state’s balance of powers into question.

This echoes the recent case of Veracruz Judge Angélica Sánchez Hernández, who was arrested and ordered into preventative detention for alleged “crimes against public faith and influence peddling” on Friday, June 16,  after granting the release of a drug trafficking criminal in compliance with a federal judge’s amparo.

Sánchez Hernández was previously targeted by the Veracruz police just two weeks prior and was arrested under allegations of shooting at the state police officers while driving and drug possession, accusations her family has staunchly denied. The judge was subsequently held by the Veracruz officers in a dark room with a hood over her head without communications with the outside world for five hours before her eventual release.

Now, with Sánchez Hernández sitting in preventative detention, Gómez Leyva’s Tuesday night broadcast went on to allege that the aggressive actions taken to detain Sánchez Hernández were retaliatory measures against the Veracruz judge’s knowledge of a meeting between Veracruz state officials like García and local state judges, which she supposedly reported to the Bar Association.

Sánchez Hernández’s case is expected to be addressed by Federal Judge Daniela María León Linarte during a hearing on July 3, though it remains to be determined if Veracruz’s other local judges will comply with Jiménez and García’s alleged orders in the wake of the public example made out of their colleague.