Mexican special prosecutor concludes Indian woman not raped by soldiers

A special prosecutor found no evidence soldiers beat and raped an elderly Indian woman in a Gulf coast village, closing a case that outraged Indian rights groups and prompted the army to dismantle encampments in the area.

"The death of Ernestina Ascensio Rosario cannot be attributed to factors other than natural causes," Special Prosecutor Juan Alatriste said at a news conference late Monday.

Alatriste was accompanied by officials from the Veracruz state prosecutor's office, which initially claimed that four soldiers bound, beat and sodomized Ascensio, 73, on Feb. 25 in the mountain town of Soledad Atzompa, about 120 miles east of Mexico City. They based the accusation on the testimony of local residents and medical investigators.

The original investigators have been placed on leave pending an internal review. Alatriste said he was closing the case following a "scientific and legal investigation."

His decision came a full month after Mexico's National Human Rights Commission said an autopsy on Ascensio's body showed she was neither beaten nor raped, but died of acute anemia from internal bleeding in her digestive tract.

When the allegations of rape by soldiers first surfaced, Indian groups were outraged and town Mayor Javier Perez demanded that troops be withdrawn from the predominantly Indian region. The army has since dismantled three nearby encampments.

The human rights commission later said that state investigators had committed errors and received permission to exhume the body so that a second autopsy could be performed.