Judges Latest Target in Mexico Drug War

MEXICO CITY — Judges have become the latest target of Mexico's drug violence, a sign that warring drug cartels are escalating their attacks on the Mexican government, analysts warn.

The northern Mexican city of Monterrey is reeling from last week's execution of a state judge who had handled cases against several dangerous drug traffickers, and death threats against at least three fellow judges. Three days earlier, a municipal judge in the state of Sinaloa was found tortured and executed.

The violence has sparked worry that Mexico's already weak judicial system could be coming under a Colombia-like onslaught.

"Narco-traffickers are working to destroy the rule of law and it's obvious that judges, like police before them, are targets," said Michael Nuñez Torres, a legal expert at the Autonomous University of Nuevo Leon.

In response, Mexican lawmakers have proposed hiding the identity of judges, similar to what Colombia did during the height of that country's drug violence in the 1980s and '90s, when scores of judges were assassinated.

Many experts say that before Mexico takes that drastic step, which has been criticized by the United Nations and human rights organizations, Mexico needs to beef up security for its woefully underprotected judges.

Some analysts have proposed including protection of judges in wide-ranging judicial reform legislation expected to be debated by Congress this spring.

"The protection for (judges) is very haphazard instead of being systematic," said Mexico City security analyst Ana Maria Salazar. "They all need bulletproof cars, work places that are safe from bombs and other attacks ... and ways to get out of the country quickly and easily if they do come under threats."

In the aftermath of the execution and threats, judges in the state of Nuevo Leon, home to the country's third-largest city, Monterrey, have been granted 24-hour protection. Officials would not say what the protection consists of or which judges would receive it.

Judges in Mexico have been relatively immune from violence, especially compared to their Colombian counterparts, which some attribute to the cartels' traditional preference to bribe rather than assassinate magistrates.

The attacks against Mexican judges follow a steady progression of violence against government officials that began with the executions of police, prosecutors and politicians. Scores have been killed in recent years and hit men have begun targeting specific officers and agents involved in large drug busts or arrests.

The government of President Felipe Calderón has embarked on an unprecedented offensive against the dueling Gulf and Sinaloa cartels, sending tens of thousands of soldiers and federal agents to challenge traffickers, mostly along the U.S. border.

Jorge Chabat, a national security expert, said the spiraling violence against officials signals a new phase in the Mexican drug war.

"(The government's) offensive is evidently generating a violent response on part of the narcos," Chabat wrote this week in the Mexico City daily El Universal. "What we're witnessing is not a confrontation of narco vs. narco as in earlier years. It's a confrontation of narco vs. the state that's occurring with an intensity that we haven't seen before."

Judge Ernesto Palacios was gunned down Jan. 21 as he drove on a busy Monterrey road. Local media have linked his death to the August 2005 arrest of several top suspected Sinaloa Cartel capos at a Monterrey restaurant.

Five officials who dealt with the suspects, including the head of the police force that arrested them, have been killed since then, according to media reports.

When three prison guards turned up dead in September 2005, one had a note nailed to his body reading "So you don't mess with Mr. El Tubi," a reference to a top drug lord who was arrested in the raid.

In response to Palacio's execution, lawmakers in Nuevo Leon have proposed a system of so-called faceless judges.

In Colombia, 278 judges were killed between 1978 and 1991, spurring adoption a system in which judges signed their orders with numbers, conducted hearings behind one-way mirrors and used voice distortion equipment.

While no judges were killed under the system, the method was scrapped in 1999 after the United Nations found it infringed on the right of due process and activists complained it was being used — and abused — in nonorganized crime cases.

Most Mexican analysts have dismissed the idea as unworkable in Mexico, saying the cartels would still find ways to uncover the judges' supposedly hidden identities. Mexico's constitution, which mandates that defendants know their judge, would need to be modified, analysts say.

Lawmakers in Nuevo Leon have also suggested a system in which groups of judges handle sensitive cases, and where it would not be clear which judge handed down a verdict.

Should Mexico decide to hide the identity of its judges, it would be following a growing pattern of anonymity since drug violence exploded here in 2005.

Soldiers and law enforcement officials now regularly don masks when dealing with high level suspects and most Mexican newspapers leave their reporters' bylines off of stories related to drug trafficking.