Mexico City: A judge in Mexico has dropped charges against four men after some of them were tortured into confessing to tossing grenades into a crowd, killing eight people, authorities said Wednesday.
The judge said evidence was fabricated and c were violated following the grenade attack in the western state of Michoacan, which injured more than 100 people.
The magistrate concluded that three of the four men confessed after investigators discovered that they were "subjected to acts of torture," according to the Federal Judicial Council.
Two grenades were thrown into a crowd celebrating Independence Day on September 15, 2008, in Michoacan`s state capital, Morelia.
At the time, authorities accused the four men of belonging to the ultra-violent Zetas drug cartel and of throwing the grenades to provoke the government. The Zetas were fighting La Familia cartel at the time in Michoacan.
But the judicial council noted that witnesses had placed three of the four suspects in the Pacific port of Lazaro Cardenas on the day of the attack.
Relatives of the three men had claimed in 2008 that they had been kidnapped by armed men three days after the grenade attack and tortured into confessing.
Authorities found the three men in a house in the city of Apatzingan with their hands tied and signs that they had been beaten.
