The Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas Human Rights Center (Frayba) and the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) demanded that the Chiapas judiciary reverse the systematic human rights violations and order the release of Honduran national Osmán Iván Rubio Bonilla, a “torture survivor unjustly accused in three cases” brought by the Chiapas Attorney General’s Office.
Both organizations stated in a press release that the Central American man was acquitted of homicide on November 4th after 14 years and 6 months of resisting arrest, although he remains incarcerated in the Tapachula prison on other charges.
They indicated that the Honduran man was arrested on May 2, 2011, in the municipality of Huixtla during an operation carried out by municipal and state police without a warrant, arbitrarily, and under torture.
According to the foreigner’s testimony, on the day of his arrest he was blindfolded, tied up, beaten, waterboarded, subjected to electric shocks, sensory deprivation, and physical and psychological abuse until he confessed to several crimes.
These abuses were documented by the State Human Rights Commission, which recorded injuries consistent with torture. In 2020, the Commission issued Recommendation 013/2020-R regarding the case, which was rejected by the Chiapas Attorney General’s Office and the then-Secretariat of Security and Citizen Protection.
Both the Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas Human Rights Center and the World Organisation Against Torture maintained that the three criminal proceedings against the prisoner stemmed from statements obtained under duress.
That is, attempted unlawful deprivation of liberty and organized crime, based on criminal case 177/2023, which has remained in the investigative stage for more than 13 years, without the criminal court of the Tapachula judicial district issuing a sentence.
He was also charged with aggravated homicide, according to criminal case 423/2023. “A sentence was issued in 2023 based on confessions to the Public Prosecutor’s Office and testimonies that did not identify him, and was overturned in 2024 to investigate the reported torture. On November 4, 2025, he was finally acquitted.”
Furthermore, both organizations added, he was charged with the crime of carrying a firearm without a license, based on the federal case “in which he was acquitted in 2014.”
The statement specified that the Frayba documentation reveals systematic irregularities, such as fabricated evidence, contradictions in police reports, manipulated expert analyses, and ministerial actions that ignored early reports of torture.
During that period, the State Human Rights Commission confirmed that Rubio Bonilla’s arrest did not take place at the scene of the alleged kidnapping and that there was no direct identification by the complainant, thus dismissing the claim of flagrante delicto made by the authorities.
Sentenced to 15 years in prison, the defendant faces a trial marred by due process violations, racism, lack of consular assistance, ineffective investigation, and unjustified delays, which have kept him in prolonged pretrial detention, a practice contrary to international standards.
Both organizations added that in response to these actions by the Mexican government, Frayba and the OMCT filed a complaint in August 2024 with the United Nations Human Rights Committee, which was considered in April 2025 under registration number 4740/2025, and which has not yet been resolved.
The urgent appeal to the state and federal governments from the Chiapas-based NGO in San Cristóbal de las Casas and the World Organization Against Torture is for a “thorough and impartial investigation into the reported torture,” as well as access to justice and reparations for the violations suffered by Osman Iván Rubio Bonilla, and his unconditional release.
Source: eluniversal
