The director of Inspection of the Municipality of Querétaro, Julio Ángel Rodríguez Cevallos, was dismissed from that position, after a conflict of interest was detected, by having “active operating licenses”, specifically for the Mr. Barbas bar, which was recently attacked by an armed group that left a balance of three murders and three wounded.
“As a result of the previous events, this operating license is thrown out of the ownership of the director of Inspection and that is why it was decided to close it, that was the reason,” explained the mayor of Querétaro, Felipe Fernando Macías. “No director of Inspection can be both judge and party. It is an obvious conflict of interest,” said the mayor.
Macías also explained that this irregularity was not detected previously because public officials have until November 30 to submit their “5 of 5”: tax declaration, assets, conflict of interest, toxicological examination and non-criminal records.
On the evening of November 7, a commando shot at Mr. Barbas, located in the Centro Sur neighborhood of the Queretaro capital and which was just being opened as a nightclub. According to reports, the three people killed were employees of the business. Four alleged hitmen were brought to trial for this case.
Previously, Mr. Barbas had already suffered an armed attack in July, when two clients were killed and an employee was injured. After that event, the bar changed its location from Celaya, Guanajuato, to Querétaro.
This week, the Secretary of Security and Citizen Protection, Omar García Harfuch, linked the massacre at the Cantaritos bar – which left 10 dead – with the recent attack on Mr. Barbas, as well as with another violent event about which he did not give more details. When asked if it was about the rivalry between the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel and the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel, the official said that he assured that it was about cells related to those groups.
Source: proceso
