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DE RUEHME #3595/01 3431337
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R 081337Z DEC 08
FM AMEMBASSY MEXICO
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 4261
INFO RUEHXC/ALL US CONSULATES IN MEXICO COLLECTIVE

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 MEXICO 003595 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/18/2028 
TAGS: CONS PREL PGOV PHUM KJUS KCRM MX
SUBJECT: PGR MAKES ITS CASE, AGAIN, ON BRAD WILL 
 
REF: MEXICO 3343 
 
Classified By: Political Minister Counselor Charles V. Barclay. 
Reason: 1.4 (b),(d). 
 
¶1. (SBU)  Summary.  Mexico's Office of the Attorney General 
(PGR) provided Emboffs with a three-hour brief on its 
investigation into the death of Amcit journalist Brad Will 
who was shot and killed in the course of civil unrest in 
Oaxaca in October 2006.  Much of what PGR  presented tracked 
with prior briefings.  PGR officials called into question the 
conclusions reached by Mexico's National Human Rights 
Commission (CNDH) in its investigation maintaining CNDH 
failed to take into consideration key evidence PGR had 
collected.  Instead, they presented the basis for their 
contention that Will was killed by someone at close range and 
the circumstantial evidence that led to their arrest of Juan 
Manuel Martinez Moreno, a supporter of the Oaxacan People's 
Assembly (APPO), for the murder.  Emboffs urged PGR officials 
to consider offering a presentation of their findings to the 
family of Brad Will in the spirit of transparency but PGR 
declined questioning the utility of such a meeting.  End 
Summary. 
¶2.  (U)  On November 20, PGR's Coordinator for International 
Affairs Adrian Franco, its Special Prosecutor for Crimes 
Against Journalists Octavio Alberto Orellano Wiarco, its 
assistant legal attache working Mexico's Embassy in the U.S. 
Guillermo Fonseca, and Assistant Prosecutor Francisco Javier 
Ribero Sanchez offered the Embassy's Consul General, 
Department of Justice attachQ, and Deputy Political Counselor 
an extensive brief on PGR's investigation into the killing of 
Amcit journalist Brad Will that it hoped the State Department 
would take into consideration in preparing its report to 
Congress on the Will investigation.  The PGR officials made 
extensive reference to film taken by Will immediately prior 
to his death, downloaded from the internet, as well to other 
film and photographs taken the day of the shooting.  They 
also addressed a series of questions the Department had asked 
us to raise regarding the investigation of the ensuing 
judicial procedures. 
The Case Against CNDH's Theory 
¶3. (SBU) CNDH contends its analysis of forensic evidence 
suggests Will was shot twice in rapid succession from a 
distance of 35-50 meters from an angle that would place the 
shooter behind a red truck located about that distance in 
front of Will.  PGR rejects this theory principally on three 
grounds. 
-- First, PGR officials recall that Will was shot by a 38 
revolver.  Working off Will's own film footage, PGR reenacted 
the scene Will was facing when he was shot with a view to 
assessing the prospects of someone getting off two shots at 
Will from behind the red truck he was facing.  Taking into 
consideration the array of people between Will and the truck, 
PGR concludes it would have been almost impossible for 
someone to get off two accurate shots with a 38 revolver from 
that range. 
-- Second, PGR officials note on the film that several 
adherents of APPO walk directly in front of the truck from 
which CNDH claims shots were being fired.  They manifest no 
concern about a shooter or shooters behind the truck 
suggesting to PGR officials that no one was shooting from 
there. 
-- Third, CNDH claims the second bullet entered Will as he 
fell forward and twisted to the left.  PGR maintains Will 
fell on his back and not in the fashion alleged by CNDH. 
Replaying its version of the Will tape, PGR officials note no 
evidence of a second shot fired in quick succession of the 
first.  Instead, its investigation suggests Will was shot 
from up close and only after his shirt had been rolled up 
after the first shot.  As evidence, they claim the second 
bullet passed through his shirt twice.  They also maintain 
that the doctor who performed the autopsy on Will disagreed 
with CNDH's findings regarding the second bullet concluding 
instead that Will was shot at an angle that suggested the 
shooter was standing over him and in relatively close 
proximity. 
The Case in Support of PGR's Theory 
¶4.  (C)  PGR's reenactment of the crime scene suggests Will 
was shot at close range as he panned right with his camera. 
PGR officials note that Will's footage captures the image of 
a young male, directly in front of him, who seemingly makes 
eye contact with someone to Will's right and then quickly 
moves out of sight immediately before Will was killed. 
Will's film never captures the shooter but it does capture a 
journalist crouched against the wall who would have observed 
Will being shot if PGR's theory were true.  PGR maintains 
this journalist works for the leftist newspaper La Jornada 
but provided no useful information in his declaration. 
¶5.  (C)  Will's film captures several APPO members armed with 
small handguns.  In fact, immediately before Will is shot, an 
APPO member who appears armed with a small handgun approaches 
Karol Ivan Llescas Resendiz, a reporter with Televisa, 
immediately to Will's left and is caught on tape apparently 
 
MEXICO 00003595  002 OF 003 
 
 
telling the journalist to stop filming.  At that very moment 
Will is shot.  The events happened in such quick succession 
that Llescas initially thought he had been shot.  Llescas 
told PGR that he saw two individuals -- one dressed 
completely in black -- in close proximity to Will right after 
he (Will) was shot.  Llescas later identified Martinez by 
photograph as the person dressed in black that he had seen 
close to Will. 
¶6.  (C)  According to PGR, a local resident of Oaxaca, 
Alfredo Feria Perez, claims he was in the vicinity of Will at 
the time Will was shot.  He did not see the person who shot 
Will but stated that he saw someone who owns two cars -- a 
black Jeep Cherokee and a light brown Golf -- standing right 
next to Will after he was shot.  He later identified, per a 
photograph PGR showed him, that Martinez was this person. 
After Will was shot, Feria said that he saw Martinez pass 
someone a small black bag and say, "one already fell" before 
running down the street.  PGR maintains that after he made 
his declaration, Feria was approached by the Oaxacan Popular 
Indigenous Council (CIPO), an organization with ties to APPO, 
about attending one of its meetings and offered a job by the 
WorkersQ, Party (PT), another APPO supporter, suggesting to 
PGR that APPO was concerned about what Feria knew and sought 
to compromise his testimony. 
¶7.  (SBU)  Addressing Department questions, PGR officials 
reported that they had not recovered bullets from any other 
victims that would suggest they were shot by the same weapon 
that killed Will.  They maintained that they had re-examined 
the case against the three Oaxacan state police officers 
arrested and released initially but found insufficient 
evidence to press charges against them.  They also said that 
they tracked down individuals photographed or filmed with 
weapons the day of Will's killing, but found none in 
possession of a 38 revolver, the weapon investigators 
concluded was used to kill Will.  All claimed that they had 
fired their weapons in the air and not at the protesters. 
PGR's Take on PHR's Report 
¶8.  (SBU)  At the request of the Will family, the NGO 
Physicians for Human Rights visited Mexico in March 2008 to 
review evidence.  Its report concluded one of the bullets 
that shot Will had ricocheted off of something red before 
hitting Will.  Following up on the PHR's report, PGR reported 
that one of its experts tested the red paint against 
everything red located in the vicinity of the Will shooting 
and found no match.  Instead, the expert found that the paint 
corresponded with nail polish the ballistics expert examining 
the bullets had used to distinguish it from the other bullet. 
 When the investigators interviewed the Oaxacan expert in 
ballistics who produced the first report on the bullet 
removed from Will's body, he claimed he had painted the 
bullet with red nail polish.  PGR accounted for the damaged 
state of the bullet as described in the PHR report noting 
that the bullet had been lodged in Will's spine and was 
damaged upon removal by the technician who performed the 
autopsy.  PGR says that it has a video of the autopsy that 
substantiates this claim. 
¶9.  (SBU)  PGR officials maintained that they took into 
consideration both PHR and CNDH's reports before they 
arrested Martinez for Will's killing.  In fact, Orellana said 
that the prosecutors went back to PGR's experts with both 
reports asking them if they wanted to reconsider their 
findings.  They reportedly insisted on standing by their 
original conclusions.  While PHR's report has not been 
formally "ratified" by its authors for authentication 
purposes, it was presented by PGR to the Oaxacan court along 
with all other evidence in the case, and much was part of the 
record considered by the judged who determined that there was 
sufficient evidence to detain Martinez and proceed with his 
prosecution.  As part of the record, the PHR report also 
would be reviewed by any judicial authority ruling on this 
case in the future.  PGR's Franco reported that the Attorney 
General's office was preparing a point by point refutation of 
PHR's report for our benefit and would share it with us when 
it was completed. 
PGR Claims CNDH Report Lacking Key Elements 
¶10.  (C)  While CNDH did not publish its report until 
September 26, it claims that it concluded its investigation 
in June.  PGR maintains that CNDH's report consequently did 
not take into account three pieces of evidence that emerged 
after June.  Separately, CNDH declined to take into 
consideration PGR's reenactment of the Will crime scene and 
the testimony offered by Feria. 
-- On August 28, 2008, Televisa reporter Llescas identified 
Martinez as an individual he had last seen in the vicinity of 
Will when he was shot. 
-- In August 2008, the journalist who took the photo of an 
alleged policemen wearing a red shirt shooting in the same 
street where Will was killed made a declaration that he took 
that photo twenty minutes before Will was killed and not 
immediately prior to Will's shooting as initially reported. 
PGR also notes that the red truck blocking the street on 
Will's tape was not evident in the photographer's picture of 
the armed policeman reinforcing PGR's argument that the 
 
MEXICO 00003595  003 OF 003 
 
 
photographer did not took his picture of the armed policemen 
immediately before Will was shot. 
-- On August 29, 2008, the Oaxacan ballistics expert who 
examined the bullet removed from Will's body reported that he 
had painted the bullet with red nail polish. 
PGR's Next Brief? 
¶11.  (C)  PGR's Franco signaled PGR's willingness to provide 
another brief on its investigation to Department officials 
either in Washington or Mexico City.  Emboffs assured him 
that we would share the essential elements of PGR's brief 
with Washington officials and let them decide whether another 
was necessary.  Embassy's Consul General, however, urged PGR 
to consider offering the Will family a briefing in the 
interest of transparency.  Franco initially signaled a 
willingness to consider this but in a follow on conversation 
with the Consul General said that he thought this kind of 
contact with the Will family would not/not be useful given 
its "attitude" toward Mexican authorities.  If we thought 
that family's attitude might change, then the GOM could 
reconsider offering such a brief.  Franco also presumed that 
the family would want to include its lawyer in the 
conversation -- a proposition the PGR/GOM would find 
problematic. 
¶12. (C)  Comment.  Both CNDH and PGR rely heavily upon their 
respective versions of the Will tape to support their 
hypotheses regarding his killing.  However, whereas CNDH 
claims to have a copy of the original that it received from 
the family, PGR concedes its version was downloaded from the 
internet.  PGR's brief raises questions about the credibility 
of CNDH's conclusion that Will was shot by someone from a 
range of over 35 meters.  It is also hard to deny that it 
would have been far easier for someone to shoot and kill Will 
from a close range -- a conclusion supported by the forensic 
evidence gathered by PGR's experts.  Yet, PGR's case lacks 
two essential elements Q) a direct eyewitness to Will's 
killing and a compelling motive beyond its claim that an APPO 
member may have killed Will because he was filming its 
skirmish with the police or out of an attempt to create a 
cause cQl 
bre.  As such, PGR's case rests on circumstantial 
evidence which may well prove sufficient to convict Martinez 
in a Oaxacan court but may prove lacking in the court of 
public opinion.  Martinez' lawyer has already raised a 
challenge to the case in district court, only the first of 
what we anticipate will be numerous challenges. 
Visit Mexico City's Classified Web Site at 
http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/wha/mexicocity and the North American 
Partnership Blog at http://www.intelink.gov/communities/state/nap / 
BASSETT