Jailed Mexican environmentalists may go free
Copyright © 2000 Reuters Limited
August 22, 2000
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Two jailed Mexican ecologists, one awarded an international prize for his efforts to protect the nation's embattled forests, may be freed from prison this week, human rights and environmental groups said Tuesday.
Rodolfo Montiel, 44, who in April received the annual Goldman environmental award, and Teodoro Cabrera were arrested by the army and accused of planting marijuana and owning illegal firearms in a case human rights activists have decried as trumped-up.
The two ecologists, who led a blockade in the southern state of Guerrero in 1988 against logging operations by U.S. firm Boise Cascade Corporation, are due to hear a verdict on Friday.
``We are confident they will be absolved,'' said Edgar Cortez, head of the Agustin Pro Juarez human rights center.
Alejandro Calvillo, director of Greenpeace in Mexico, told reporters that the detention of Montiel and Cabrera served ``the political and economic interests of some people in the area who want deforestation to continue.''
Following the protests by Montiel and others, Boise suspended its logging operations in Guerrero.
Greenpeace, the Agustin Pro Juarez center and the Mexican Center for Environmental Law, among others, have formed an alliance to defend the imprisoned ecologists.