El Universal
September 10, 2001
By Rebeca Jiménez Jacinto

General José Francisco Gallardo Rodríguez, who claims that the Procuraduría General de la República (PGR - the Department of Justice) became militarized with the naming of Rafael Macedo de la Concha as its head, reaffirmed that he is being subjected to solitary confinement in the state prison of Neza-Bordo in Xochiaca.

In an interview he gave from his 8 meter-square cell located in the area reserved to prisoners subject to protection, where he is imprisoned along with members of the criminal squad and the local and national police forces, Gallardo Rodríguez reported that: "Various documents issued by the prison's administration actually refer to this place as a discipline area."

General Gallardo was moved to a different cell the day after El Universal published a thorough report on how members of the Office of National Defence carried out telephone espionage on the Gallardo Rodríguez family.

However, Evangelina Lara Alcántara, head of Prevención y Readaptación Social from the state of México, which deals with crime prevention and the social re-adaptation of criminals, argued that Gallardo Rodríguez was transferred from a 12 meter-square cell to an 8 m.-sq. one only in order to resolve the overcrowding problems encountered in the prison: "We had prisoners sleeping on the floor while the General occupied on his own a cell designed for five people."

José Francisco Gallardo Rodríguez in his turn asserted that: "the question of overpopulation cannot be resolved by sending me here." Gallardo Rodríguez remembered how: "In Military Camp number 1, they put me in the 'negras', the 'Black-ones', discipline quarters painted in black, in which they worked on punishing and intimidating the prisoners."

Then, the General proclaimed his innocence, declaring that: "they accuse me of having grown rich illegally when I live in a public housing project only a little bigger than this" while glancing round the reduced cell he now occupies.

He explains furthermore that President Fox, although having promised to be careful with judiciary administrative institutions, appointed a military Attorney General: "I'm referring to Macedo de la Concha, and all the scoundrels that are there with him."

"How is it that the PGR became militarized? Well, President Fox will have to answer some quite embarrassing questions...", adds Gallardo Rodríguez. Vicente Fox must rethink all of it in another way and order the militaries back in their barracks, under subordination of civil authorities: "that's basically my point; that is my suggestion, and I will continue to stand up for it even if they keep me in jail", reasserts General Gallardo Rodríguez.

Translated from Spanish by Caroline Rabemanantsoa on November 27, 2001