Overview

• On August 9, Vallarta installed a tent outside the Supreme Court to urge investigations into former officials such as ex-Federal Police commander Luis Cárdenas Palomino.
• Judge Mariana Vieyra Valdés acquitted him on August 1 after finding that the PGR manipulated evidence and induced witnesses in the 2005 Las Chinitas operation.
• He is campaigning to free his brother Mario and nephew Sergio, who remain imprisoned on allegations of belonging to the Los Zodiaco kidnapping gang.
• The FGR and alleged victims have signaled their intent to appeal the acquittal under legal criteria similar to those used in the Florence Cassez case.
• Former Supreme Court president Arturo Zaldívar and other human rights advocates have decried Vallarta’s two-decade pretrial detention as a "grotesque fabrication."