Mexico prosecutor arrested for alleged femicide cover-up
A senior Mexican public prosecutor accused of trying to cover up the murder of a young woman was arrested Friday on suspicion of obstruction of justice, authorities said.
Uriel Carmona, attorney general in the central state of Morelos, was detained in connection with the death of 27-year-old Ariadna Lopez, whose body was found in October.
She had gone missing the night before after leaving a restaurant in the capital.
Carmona said afterward that the young woman had died of severe alcohol intoxication, denying there had been foul play after a first autopsy.
But Mexico City's then mayor Claudia Sheinbaum, who has since stepped down to run for the presidency, accused him of trying to "cover up a femicide."
She showed journalists footage from a surveillance camera which she said revealed a suspect loading the young woman's lifeless body into a vehicle.
At the request of the Lopez family, Mexico City officials performed a second autopsy which showed the young woman died of multiple traumas.
Carmona was arrested in the city of Cuernavaca, some 90 kilometers (56 miles) south of Mexico City, by government officials backed by soldiers, the public prosecutor's office in the capital said.
Around 10 women are murdered every day in Mexico, and most of the crimes go unpunished.
