BETRAYED The Assassination of Digna Ochoa

Hardback. Late on a Friday afternoon in October 2001, lawyer Gerardo Gonzalez Pedraza climbed the stairs of 31-A Zacatecas Street, a seedy building in a rundown part of Mexico City. Nothing appeared amiss. But when he reached the first-floor offices that he shared with other human rights lawyers, Gerardo became the first witness to a crime that would stun the nation. Peering into the gloom, he could just make out a small figure lying against the far sofa. It was his distinguished and internationally recognised colleague, Digna Ochoa y Placido, dead from a bullet to her brain. Over the next week, everyone from President Vicente Fox to Mexico City Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador would give their solemn word that, this time, the outcome of this crime would be different from the litany of unsolved assassinations in Mexico. Yet by July 2003, the case had been closed. The ruling? "Probable suicide." This is the author's chilling account of a cold-blooded murder and her conviction that a cover-up reaching into the top echelons of the Mexican government had occurred. Tracing Digna Ochoa's extraordinary rise from poverty to become a champion of Mexico's most persecuted peoples, the author takes us from the steamy state of Guerrero, to the Chiapas jungles inhabited by Zapatistan rebels. Illus., Epilogue, Chronology, Notes, Selected Bibliog. and Index. 514pp. 8vo. h/back. From the library of true crime writer, Wilfred Gregg, with his personal b/plate. With remainder mk. to lower edge o/w Vg+ in Vg+ dw. A fairly heavy book which may require additional postage.