Juan Carlos "El Konan" García Cruz, a member of the Popular People's Assembly of Oaxaca (APPO) was sentenced to three years in prison by a Mexican federal court in Oaxaca City Aug. 26 on arms possession charges. While several APPO supporters remain behind bars pending charges, García Cruz is the first to be formally sentenced. APPO legal spokesman Gilberto Hernández Santiago called the sentence "inadmissible," saying that García Cruz had been illegally arrested by unaccountable plainclothes paramilitary forces, that he had been tortured, and the arms "planted" on him. (La Jornada, Aug. 28)

Meanwhile, five state and municipal police in Oaxaca City were ordered arrested by the state prosecutor on charges of "abuse of authority" in the case of Emeterio Marino Cruz, an APPO activist who was apparently brutally beaten after having been arrested at a protest earlier this summer. (La Jornada, Aug. 31)

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