According to a conclusion brought about by a United Nations panel, the arrest of a community police leader (Nestora Salgado) was deemed as a form of illegal detention.
Nestora Salgado's arrest was found to be illegal, according to a United Nations panel. This new announcement comes as good news to her family, friends, and supporters who all hope that she could be freed.
Salgado, a resident of Renton Seattle and who's native is Mexico, was arrested in August 2013 after people who were detained by her group claims that they have been 'kidnapped.' Salgado was known to lead a community police force that could be seen as a vigilante style way of enforcing peace and order. Salgado's ways gained her quite a number of supporters, including international crime watch groups. Salgado's group aims to protect members of the community from organized crime and corruption.
In 2013, a federal judge cleared Salgado from kidnapping charges but other charges related to the case has kept her behind bars since then.
The International Human Rights Clinic at Seattle University Law School has been eyeing and working on Salgado's case at the United Nation's Working Group on Arbitrary Detention in Geneva, Switzerland for two years, ABC reports.
A decision from the five-member panel, which was relayed to Salgado's lawyers on Tuesday, was reached in December. The decision states that her arrest was "arbitrary" and stated that Mexico should free her and compensate Salgado for violating her human rights. It has been reported that while in prison, Salgado was denied access to clean water and contact with her family.
While the ruling does not take effect in Mexico, the decision could increase the pressure to release Salgado. Thomas Antkowiak, the law clinic's director, said that this decision could be seen as a "breakthrough."
"This is a very important channel for political pressure: We have an impartial international panel that says she's detained illegally. I think it's kind of a breakthrough. We've been in ongoing negotiations with the government in Mexico, the federal government mainly, and those have gone nowhere. We're hoping this is going to inject new life into those negotiations," said Antkowiak, in a report by CS News.
