(21 Oct 2001)
1. Wide shot of casket and family members placing a prayer on the wall
2. Close up of pray
3. Medium shot of man lighting a candle
4. Wide shot of priest beside casket
5. Zoom In to still photo of Ochoa
6. Various shots of priest, friends and family members mourning
7. Wide shot of little girl beside casket
8. SOUNDBITE: (Spanish) Emilio Alvarez Icasa, President of Human Rights Commission, Mexico City: "Preliminary evidence points to homicide. The shot in the head and leg show that this was a homicide. The Attorney General communicated today that it was a homicide with political means because she participated in human rights activities"
9. Zoom out from priest to wide of casket
10. Various of friends and family members
11. SOUNDBITE: (Spanish) Emilio Alvarez Icasa, President of Human Rights Commission, Mexico City: "This has been a brutal action against human rights activists. Beside her body was found a note directed to other activists from "Centro Pro Derechos Humanos, (Human Rights Pro Center). This act is inexplicable considering the fact of the brutality against human rights"
12. CU of still photo of Ochoa
13. Wide shot of casket
STORYLINE:
A prominent human rights lawyer who had defended Zapatista sympathisers was killed after receiving several death threats, and a note left with her body warned that the same could happen to others, Mexico City's Attorney General said on Saturday.
Digna Ochoa, 38, was found dead Friday after being shot in the leg and head, Attorney General Bernardo Batiz said.
She was working at the office of two fellow human rights attorneys when her body was found.
Officials had no suspects.
A note, apparently left by the killers and directed at the Miguel Agustin Pro Juarez Human Rights Center where Ochoa sometimes worked, warned: "If they continue, this will also happen to another. You have been advised. This is not a trick," said the center's director, Edgar Cortez.
Ochoa had been kidnapped and threatened and had received a string of death threats since 1995 which Batiz's office was investigating.
But Cortez said the investigations weren't sufficient.
Although Ochoa had received protection in the past, Cortez said, she left the country for work and was not given government guards when she returned in April.
Ochoa had often defended rebel sympathizers in southern Mexico, including those jailed for supporting Zapatistas who led a 1994 uprising in Chiapas state.
Ochoa's cases included those of anti-logging activists Rodolfo Montiel and Teodoro Cabrera Garcia, who were sentenced in August 2000 to six years and 10 years, respectively, on drug and weapons charges.
Ochoa argued the charges were fabricated and that her clients were really arrested for blocking logging roads to protest clear-cutting in old-growth forests near the Pacific coast.
She didn't have any specific clients at the time of her death, Cortez said, but she was helping out on several cases, including those of two brothers accused of being members of a guerrilla group and small explosive devices outside branches of Banco Nacional de Mexico, or Banamex, which was recently purchased by Citigroup.
The August 8 bombings were claimed by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of the People, known by its Spanish initials of FARP.
It is believed to be an offshoot of the People's Revolutionary Army that appeared in 1996 with a wave of attacks on police and army posts, many in the southwestern states of Guerrero and Oaxaca.
Find out more about AP Archive: [ Ссылка ]
Twitter: [ Ссылка ]
Facebook: [ Ссылка ]
Instagram: [ Ссылка ]
You can license this story through AP Archive: [ Ссылка ]
