POURRAIT SAUVE L'OTAGO SUISSE
RAPT IN MEXICO
Max Morales, a lawyer, specializes in cases of hostages. More than drug traffickers, corrupt police he feared. Portrait of a former bodyguard of the pope, who could play a key role in the affair of Jura kidnapped in December.
By Arnaud Bedat - Online on 18/01/2011
A month, a month already had a heavy silence. Since the day after his abduction last December 19 in Cuernavaca, no more new Olivier Tschumi, the Swiss hostages captured by a gang of drug dealers in the State of Morelos. After paying a ransom of 10,000 dollars - about 300 000 charged - still no trace, no serious leads. And nothing really seems to get better.
Is he still alive? Nothing indicates otherwise. Every hour, every minute is important - like the 3000 that currently sequestered Mexico, Country grangrené by fever kidnappings. But, like the Swiss Embassy in Mexico City, which has always "no concrete results so far," the family of Oliver Tschumi also seems helpless. A family vexed by a strategy that yielded no results, and now undermined by dissension and strife - between one part of the branch remained in Switzerland and those living in Mexico, totally under the influence of a French expatriate established Mexico, the role for less obscure. The latter promised again ten days ago arrests "imminent" by the Mexican police - who are here totally corrupt and often in cahoots with the kidnappers, only too happy to increase their miserable wages of thousands of pesos angel. More seriously, a month after the abduction, person in the entourage of Olivier or the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs in Bern has yet used the services of a negotiator. Yet everyone here agrees that without the talents of such a man experienced in this type of exercise, it is almost impossible to attend a happy ending kidnappings by drug traffickers, real gangsters.
"CUTTER EARRINGS"
Max Morales is he the man for the job? It is certainly one of the best, if not the best in its genre. Sitting in a restaurant in Mexico City, the lawyer 54 years more preferred darkness to light, but he agreed to talk to us. From the outset, he does not hide that, if one were called upon to try to save Oliver Tschumi, he would plunge headlong into trying to get out of the clutches of hell. "This type of problem has solutions, he glides. There is no reason for it to end badly if we put up a good strategy to save him. "Negotiator displays a record that speaks volumes about his persuasive: more than 5000 cases solved in twenty years. And hundreds of arrests of criminals, including one in 1998, Daniel Arizmendi, known as the "ear cutter" the "serial Secuestradores" the bloodiest in the history of Mexico. "He has mounted 25 abductions and got $ 40 million in five years it has raised" vocations. " In the history of modern criminology, there is a before and after Arizmendi, Morales analysis. It was from him that we can speak of organized crime in Mexico and we see appearing recurrently active participation of police in 90% of kidnappings. "
Former bodyguard of John Paul II during of his three trips to Mexico, Max Morales claims a quasi-messianic task. The secret to his success? "To tell you the truth, he smiles mysteriously, I've got a head on which I rely constantly. It is God. He helps me solve all these cases that remain a lot of stress, involve risks and are often very dangerous. Actually, I put myself in his hands and, through him, until today, in all cases I had to solve all the hostages have returned alive. " WORSE THAN THE POLICE drug traffickers In the case of Olivier Tschumi, Max Morales calls for a media strategy pushing Switzerland to lobby at the highest diplomatic level, on President Felipe Calderon himself, who could at once refer the matter to the Mexican secret service and help find a rapid solution. "It would also put pressure on the kidnappers themselves, he says. In the case of Olivier Tschumi, take advantage of the fact that he is abroad and play on all the guarantees and the rights it has as a foreigner in Mexico. "
"During the last presidential campaign, it required a frontal fight against the kidnapping of candidates, but never against drug traffickers, which made them even more untouchable. And has only generate new abductions that can now be classified into four groups: the kidnapping by surprise, at random in the street, removing economic set up by gangs, made by narcoenlèvement narcopoliciers, and now the mass removal, where kidnap groups to become slaves in the north. "Max Morales regrets for example, that in very poor state of Morelos, where Oliver was kidnapped Tschumi," entire villages dedicated to kidnapping. " And federal anti-brigade Secuestros Cuernavaca, supposed to take care of abduction cases, has no national certification and no real desire to fight ...
In fact, Max Morales fears it not be removed one day to turn? "To be honest with you, not really loose there. But I already know what could be my end, because in my case there would be no negotiation possible ransom cons: it would be to permanently exterminating. I am prepared mentally for this for years, I have assimilated. But generally speaking offenders respect me much more than the police. "Yet, as he feels protected by his boss," way up there, "Morales does not intend to abandon his mission soon, and he intends continue for a long time to save innocent lives. In a totally volunteer, on behalf of God.
Source: The Illustrated
Cassez Florence: "J'ai crie qui ma you détresse ventre et la tête qui pense à demain" Demande d'aide
From OUR CORRESPONDENT IN MEXICO CITY, PATRICE GOUY
"I've never seen a criminal can make believe he's innocent more than six months. After he resigned. Cassez resists over five years and shows us that it has no place here. We all know she is not guilty! ". The commander responsible for the supervision of the prison where Florence Tepepan must serve his sentence of sixty years is not one to take oneself too. But she readily admits the pugnacity of the French.
is this fighting spirit that allowed Break in Florence to get a place in the institution. Inmates as prison staff know full well that she has nothing of an offender. This pretty girl detonates in the correctional system, where the bodies of detainees confirm that their life was not easy. Tall, slim, green eyes, blond hair and comely face Venetian, it welcomes guests in the huge yard as if she were at home
Confessions under torture
When, in April 2008, Florence was sentenced Break for the removal of four and possession of weapons, the world collapses. The inconsistency, the inconsistency of the case are such that she was convinced to be released at the hearing. But the judge Olga Sanchez, she has encountered only a few times, and still breezed, the condemnation ninety-six years in prison. Twenty years abducted person with a key error: the file referred to three persons kidnapped and not four, as stated in the sentence. For a weapon that police said they found in a van that does not belong to him and she never used, the judge added eight. And eight others for criminal conspiracy.
Problem: The law requires at least three persons to constitute a crime by organized gangs. But the supposed "band" is composed only of Israel Vallarta, a former companion of Florence, one wonders why, has not yet been tried, and Florence Break. The authorities take three years to find the answer: in May 2009, the right arm of Genaro Garcia Luna - current Minister of Public Safety - announces the arrest of one David Oroz-co, who confessed under torture that Florence break was the gang leader of the Zodiac.
"All this, she said, demonstrates that it is a plot that begins with the staging of my arrest. I am arrested Dec. 8, 2005, on the road to Mexico, while I moved furniture stored in the ranch of Israel. The police kept me in solitary confinement in a van until 9 December. In the morning, it takes me to the ranch where I find the people we are supposed to have removed. Half an hour later, I fall on the televisions and film a pseudo-liberation that condemn me in the eyes of millions of Mexicans who make it all for cash.
Procedural defects
In February 2006, Florence, still in custody, is authorized to participate in a television program during which it obliges Genaro Garcia Luna to recognize that the arrest was a reconstruction. This confirms that the neighbors of the ranch. We found the gardener who had the key to the ranch and the cabin where the three hostages, Cristina Rios, his son Christian and Ezequiel Elizalde, were supposed to be detained. However, the gardener told us, as he made to the judge Olga Sanchez, that two days before the false arrest, he had arranged, as usual, the lawn mower in this cabin and there was found no one. This is a go without water or electricity, while the prisoners in their statements said they watch TV all day long.
However, the court requires no further investigation. And no matter that Cassez was not brought before a judge within two hours as required by law, since the file has been installed in all pieces by a public prosecutor very sensitive to the pressures of power. Anyway, it is necessary, in Mexico, more than defects in procedure to cancel a verdict. "My case is not unique," says Florence. None of the prisoners around me has had a fair trial. " In this country, 95% of investigations never lead. However, prisons are full to bursting. The Mexican justice system has a serious problem. Mexicans recognize, but as soon as wrinkle is a stranger who draws this conclusion. That's the problem Cassez. At the slightest criticism, the whole country up to the plate to defend the institutions, if faulty they may be.
More serious still is the collusion that binds the police and Televisa, the largest television group in Latin America, which serves as a sounding board to power. And when Florence Break denounces these practices live on TV, no tenor of the bar, not an intellectual or a parliamentary vote to raise, worrying about his fate and indignant at the flaws that undermine the Mexico ... "There is a trivialization of violations of human rights, torture. Nobody dares to attack the police for fear of reprisals. I never faced Genaro Garcia Luna, all Mexicans have found I had a butt monster attack a man who could make me disappear ", says Florence. Officials fear of displeasing the government, journalists to get back to their chief editor or readers. Some sometimes dare to comment, a column, but do not generally undertake further. Only a handful of investigative journalists - mostly women - as Anabel Hernandez, Lydia Cacho Carmen Aristegui, or the journalists Proceso magazine challenging the power at the peril of their lives, against the tide of extreme nationalism.
Corruption
Florence has matured a lot over the past five years imprisonment. She no longer thought only butterfly party. When she arrives in Mexico, she joins her brother Sebastian. She met Eduardo Margolis, an associate who is interested in the pretty redhead. But soon, the current does not flow between the two men. Sebastian Break complaint against him after death threats. They split after a final reconciliation and fee.
Curiously, the name of Margolis reappears during arrest Florence Break. In his book In the Shadow of my life (ed. Michel Lafon), it mentions that during his arrest, a policeman told him bluntly: "You know Margolis? Well, he'll fuck you!" This trader armored cars in the upscale Polanco also serves as an intermediary for the sale of weapons to the police they will have their entries at Garcia Luna, he knows well. The day of the arrest of the young woman, he is in the premises of the SIEDO, agency fight against organized crime. It is still there the day the police summoned the three kidnap victims, twenty-four hours later, they return to their statements. When we wanted to discuss his involvement in this case, the man snarled, making us understand that it was powerful, he knew very well the Minister of Public Safety. The further investigation of the tribunal on this issue also fails.
The other man Sebastian Break this to his sister is his friend Israel Vallarta. They have an affair, but the relationship breaks down during the summer of 2005 because it is jealous and possessive.
Public Views
"Today, my stomach distress and crying my head thinking about tomorrow," says Florence, bitter but still swinging. She does not know how his story will end, which has gradually slipped from the judicial field in political backwater. After the media hubbub that followed the annulment of the year in France, Mexico, the government of each country confronts its public opinion. In Mexico, the press believes that this matter has been blown up and regrets the diplomatic consequences, but especially newspapers and television continue to load Cassez.
After dismissing the cassation appeal filed by lawyers for the woman, the court has any justification. It took more than ten days to prepare its findings, which take in a record 1 529 pages. The court rejected all arguments of the defense despite the inconsistency of the investigation and inconsistencies in the trial. Not a single point raised by the most eminent jurists of the country has been retained.
The verdict is all the more questionable that the magazine Proceso last week denounced the intervention the Presidency of the republic. The right arm of Felipe Calderon warned the president of the Supreme Court that if the appeal of Florence Break was not dismissed, the Minister of Public Security, Genaro Garcia Luna, would be forced to resign. And it would weaken the struggle waged by the government against the drug cartels.
For him, the greatest danger to face during a kidnapping in Mexico, they are not criminals, but police officers. "The police organized crime. It is often said that for each band of kidnappers, there is at least one policeman in these groups, "he déploret. The problem is political: 
