Key Zapatista Leader Arrested, Mexico Says
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MEXICO CITY — Mexico’s attorney general’s office said Monday that police had arrested key Zapatista rebel leader Fernando Yanez Munoz in Mexico City earlier in the day.
A spokesman for the attorney general’s office said Yanez, known by the Zapatistas as “Comandante German,” had been caught bearing weapons, including an AK-47 assault rifle. He was being held in the capital’s Oriente jail, the spokesman added.
It was not immediately clear what charges would be brought against Yanez.
Yanez, accused of being a top commander of the Zapatista National Liberation Army, was the highest-ranking rebel arrested by authorities since the movement began its revolt in the southern state of Chiapas against the government in January, 1994. The rebels demanded greater democracy and rights for indigenous peoples.
Mexican officials claimed in February to have detained several rebel commanders, but most of them have since been released for lack of evidence.
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