BBC World Service
October 23, 2001

Ochoa defended many of Mexico's poor UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson has urged Mexican authorities to capture and prosecute the killers of leading human rights lawyer Digna Ochoa.

Ochoa was found dead in her office on Friday with a note warning of "the same fate" for other human rights activists and left-wing politicians.

She had received several death threats prior to her assassination, which had led her to leave Mexico temporarily last year.

Mrs Robinson paid tribute to Ochoa, who had spent her career defending Mexico's poor, including imprisoned rebels from the Chiapas in the south, and political prisoners.

Harassment

"Her assassination is all the more tragic in that it threatens to dash the hopes that had risen recently in the country that the intimidation and harassment of human rights defenders was finally being taken seriously," Mrs Robinson said.

Mrs Robinson, currently in Uruguay, had raised the issue of human rights defenders' protection in a meeting with Mexican President Vicente Fox at his inauguration in December of last year.

Mr Fox said in a statement on Monday that his government would take appropriate measures to prosecute those responsible and protect activists in danger.

The US State Department said America "deplored" the killing and hoped that Mexican authorities would act appropriately in bringing those guilty of Ochoa's murder to justice.