Weekly Report - 16 December 2003

Headlines suggesting that Mexico's chief prosecutor, retired General Rafael Macedo, would disregard a recommendation by a UN panel and hold on to his job were highly misleading: they were the result of sly journalistic prompting. What the panel - formerly the Mexican office of the UN High Commission for Human Rights and 12 human rights organisation - had included in its 224-page report was a recommendation to stop using the military for police work and for civilian courts to expand their purview to some military crimes.