News weekly Zeta honors Mexican army Gen. Alfonso Duarte Mujica and Tijuana Secretary of Public Security Julian Leyzaola
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An aggressive Mexican army general and Tijuana’s top cop have been named “Men of the Year” by the Baja California news weekly Zeta.
The hard-hitting Spanish-language publication typically skewers public safety officials for failing to rein in drug cartels, but editors said Gen. Alfonso Duarte Mujica and Tijuana Secretary of Public Security Julian Leyzaola last year put up a strong fight.
Mujica, 56, spearheads the Mexican government’s offensive in Baja California from the Morelos army base overlooking Tijuana. Leyzaola, 49, heads Tijuana’s 2,100-member police department.
“The offensive of these two men against organized crime generated confidence in the community and gained credibility for the institutions in one of the most difficult years in terms of security,” said the article in the magazine’s most recent issue.
The article doesn’t mention accusations by human rights groups, including Amnesty International, that both men may have been involved in the torture of suspects. Instead, it focuses on the duo’s many blows against notorious crime boss Teodoro Garcia Simental. Despite death threats, Mujica and Leyzaola made key arrests, seized record amounts of drugs and cleansed the police department of corrupt cops, the article said.
-- Richard Marosi
