INSIDE MEXICO'S DRUG WAR, AMERICANS ALLEGE ABUSE

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico-Two Americans were driving back to El Paso,
Texas, last December after an afternoon across the border in Ciudad
Juarez. A few blocks from the border, they were surrounded by Mexican
army trucks and pulled from their Dodge Ram.

Mexico's military says it found two suitcases full of marijuana in the
cab of the pickup truck. Two soldiers later testified that they drove
the two Americans to a military compound on the outskirts of town,
questioned them briefly, then turned them over to civilian
authorities. The Americans were charged with possession of marijuana
with intent to sell.

Those two men-Shohn Huckabee, 23 years old, and Carlos Quijas, 36-are
being held in a Ciudad Juarez jail. They tell a different story about
what happened that night. They say Mexican soldiers planted the
marijuana in their truck. When they arrived at the military base, they
say, they were blindfolded, tied up, hit with rifle butts, shocked
with electricity and threatened with death.

Mexico's military is leading President Felipe Calderon's war against
the nation's drug cartels, and Ciudad Juarez has emerged as one of the
bloodiest battlegrounds. Nationwide, drug violence has claimed more
than 25,000 lives since 2006-with government security forces
accounting for an estimated 7% of the dead. In June alone, 103 police
and soldiers were killed.

As the death toll rises, however, so have complaints about the
military's tactics in trying to break the drug cartels' stranglehold
on Mexican society. The human-rights office of the state of Chihuahua,
where Ciudad Juarez is located, is investigating some 465 cases of
alleged abuse and torture of Mexican citizens by soldiers. Gustavo de
la Rosa, the office's ombudsman in Ciudad Juarez, says he knows of
about 70 cases in which soldiers are alleged to have planted evidence,
including some involving suitcases packed with marijuana.

Allegations of mistreatment of suspects have caught the eye of the
U.S. Senate committee that oversees financial aid to Mexico for its
war on drugs. In an internal report, the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee says it received allegations of serious human-rights
violations in Ciudad Juarez last year. The report cites an
unidentified young man picked up in El Paso who said he was arrested
by the Mexican military in Ciudad Juarez and beaten and shocked. The
man said he was released after the military concluded he had no useful
information about trafficking, the report says.

Mr. Huckabee says he was subjected to similar tactics. "I believe what
was done to me was torture," he said in an interview. "When I did not
answer their questions, they shocked me with a wire that was in my
hands. My whole body froze up. The pain went from bearable to a point
where I couldn't even talk."

Mexican prosecutors say the two men were caught red-handed. Two
soldiers involved in their arrest testified at their trial that they
counted 99 packages of marijuana in the suitcases, weighing more than
100 pounds.

Messrs. Huckabee and Quijas say they've never been involved with drugs
and would never have tried to cross the border with two suitcases of
marijuana. During their trial, they produced three witnesses who
testified that they saw soldiers put suitcases into Mr. Huckabee's
truck. A verdict is expected this month. Each man faces up to 25 years
in prison.

Representatives of Mexico's military and of President Calderon turned
down requests for interviews. In a written response to questions from
The Wall Street Journal, the army said it briefly took the Americans
to the military compound but didn't torture them. "We categorically
deny that soldiers use these methods, and say their actions are in
total adherence to the law," the statement said.

The army previously has dismissed complaints of abuse as the work of
people allied with drug traffickers who want to drive soldiers out of
Ciudad Juarez. "Many times they make human-rights complaints because
they want to limit our capacity for action and besmirch the
institution," said Brigadier Gen. Jesus Hernandez Perez, commander of
the 4th Artillery Regiment, in an interview late last year.

The Wall Street Journal interviewed nine residents of Ciudad
Juarez-some of whom had been convicted of crimes-who said they were
tortured by soldiers at the main army camp on the outskirts of the
city.

A 33-year-old forklift operator said he had a firearm pointed to his
head and was told he would be killed during a 48-hour interrogation.
Two brothers, ages 53 and 56, said the military put plastic bags over
their heads, shocked them and staged mock executions. A 25-year-old
construction worker said soldiers used a Taser to shock his testicles.
A 54-year-old diabetic rancher said he was blindfolded, beaten and
shocked on his testicles, elbows and hands. He showed a reporter scars.

Between 2006 to 2009, complaints to Mexico's National Human Rights
Commission about the military grew tenfold, to about 4,000, including
allegations of robbery, rape, torture and killing. The allegations
threaten to undermine public support for President Calderon's military
campaign against traffickers. Some 50,000 soldiers now patrol the country.

In its statement, the military said it doesn't use torture under any
circumstance. In Mexico, soldiers answer to their own military court
system and not to civilian authorities, which means states can't
prosecute them for abuse.

The case of the two Americans comes as political tensions along the
U.S.-Mexico border have risen over issues such as illegal immigration
and the trafficking of U.S. firearms into Mexico. Under the 2007
Merida Initiative, the U.S. agreed to provide Mexico with $1.3 billion
to fight drug traffickers, including more than $420 million for the
Mexican military. U.S. lawmakers have threatened to withhold
15%-nearly $200 million-if there are human-rights violations or other
problems.

Mr. Huckabee grew up in El Paso. Friends recall he didn't have much
taste for Ciudad Juarez, which before the escalating violence was
known locally for teenage partying. On weekends, he was likely to be
found hunting with his father or riding his dirt bike in the desert.

When he was 18, he borrowed money to start a small construction
company, Site Solutions, a business that consumed much of his time. In
2008, he got married.

Records searches in El Paso County and in New Mexico reveal that Mr.
Huckabee had been charged with speeding and illegal dumping, but
contain no indication of involvement with drugs. The records showed no
criminal trouble for his close friend Mr. Quijas, whom Mr. Huckabee
had gotten to know on construction jobs.

On Dec. 18, Mr. Huckabee finished work midday and prepared to head to
Ciudad Juarez to take his father's pickup truck for some inexpensive
repair work, he and his father say. With him was Mr. Quijas, who says
he had asked for a ride across the border to visit an ill
grandfather.

Mr. Huckabee says he dropped Mr. Quijas off around 1 p.m., then drove
to a repair shop and waited there. The repairs were finished around
sunset, close to 5 p.m., according to the mechanic who did the work.

Mr. Huckabee says he made his way through rush-hour traffic and found
Mr. Quijas at Abraham Lincoln Street, not far from the Bridge of the
Americas leading into Texas. Around 6:40 p.m., the two say, they were
passing Los Caballos, a well-known monument of running horses, when
their car was surrounded by three Mexican military trucks.

"They grabbed us and threw us under a bench" in the back of a truck,
says Mr. Huckabee. Their shirts were pulled over their heads as
blindfolds, they say. The soldiers drove about a half hour to a
military compound.

The two Americans were ordered out. Mr. Huckabee says a soldier pulled
his wedding ring off his finger. (Neither the ring nor a cellphone
taken earlier have been returned, he says.) The two men were
separated. Each was examined by a doctor.Mr. Quijas, who speaks both
Spanish and English, says his eyes were wrapped with medical gauze. An
interrogator, he says, asked him about the whereabouts of various
people, using nicknames he didn't recognize. He says his interrogator
threatened that some other men would force him to talk.

Mr. Quijas was moved to another room, he says, where his hands and
feet were tied. He was wetted down with water, and he could hear the
hum of a machine, he says.

Then someone shocked him with a metal rod on his testicles, neck,
legs, back and anus, he says. He was taken back to the interrogator,
questioned, then shocked again, he says.

Elsewhere, Mr. Huckabee, who speaks little Spanish, was being
questioned, too. He was still blindfolded. His interrogator, he says,
put objects in his hand, including what seemed to him to be drug
paraphernalia, and asked him, in broken English, where they came from.
He says he replied that he didn't know. Soldiers struck him repeatedly
with the butt of a rifle, he says. Someone put a gun to his head and
pulled the trigger, he says, but it wasn't loaded.

Briefly, the two Americans were put together in a cold room. Then, Mr.
Huckabee, still blindfolded, was taken away again, he says. He says he
heard a voice telling him, in fluent English, that he had been caught
with marijuana, cocaine and guns. He says he was told to put a wire
into his hand.

When he denied knowing about the marijuana, he says, he was shocked.
He was shocked repeatedly during the questioning, he says. "They said
they could electrocute me if I didn't answer the truth," he says.

Court documents say the two men were booked between midnight and 1:30
a.m. on Dec. 19-roughly five or six hours after the time they say they
were arrested. They were charged with drug possession and transferred
to the municipal prison.

The following day, in a statement entered into the court record, Mr.
Huckabee said he had been hit by soldiers and given "electric shocks."
He says he discussed his treatment when visited by a U.S. consular
officer on Dec. 19. A U.S. official says Mr. Huckabee didn't mention
mistreatment until Dec. 28.

American officials say U.S. consulates see numerous cases every year
of Americans arrested in Mexico, and the consulates don't get involved
in defending them. Consular officials informed Mr. Huckabee's family
that they couldn't represent their son or offer legal advice.

Neither Mr. Huckabee nor Mr. Quijas made a formal complaint with U.S.
or Mexican authorities, saying they feared retaliation by soldiers
then working at the jail. In the trial, they accused their captors of
torture. The soldiers denied doing so.

Two medical examinations describe the condition of the Americans
following their arrest. The first, conducted by a military doctor the
night they were detained, found "no apparent harm" on either man. The
military said the exam took place at 10:45 p.m.

Another doctor, Dr. Hugo Tabares, examined the men at 2:50 the
following afternoon, after they were handed over to civilian
authorities. He found bruising on both men, according to a report he
filed that day. He reported a reddish-brown bruise on Mr. Huckabee's
chest and several bruises on Mr. Quijas's right arm and left leg.

In a brief interview in his office, Dr. Tabares said there were
"various bruises" on Mr. Huckabee's body that "could have been caused
the previous day." He declined to speculate on the cause of the
injuries. In a statement to the court, on Feb. 3, Dr. Tabares said the
bruising had been "caused by a blunt instrument or object."

The military said in its statement to the Journal that it didn't know
of Dr. Tabares's exam and had no comment on it.

In the Mexican judicial system, testimony isn't given in an open
courtroom before a jury, but in office cubicles in front of lawyers.
Typically, neither the judge nor the defendant is present. The judge
rules based on the transcript and case file.

The trial of the two Americans unfolded in scattered hearings over the
past six months. Two soldiers involved in the arrest testified that
they searched the vehicle because the Americans were "acting
nervously." The search, prosecutors said, turned up the two suitcases
filled with a substance that later testing showed was marijuana.
Prosecutors said it belonged to the two men.

Testimony from three Mexican witnesses at the scene-people who said
they didn't know the Americans-contradicted the army's version of events.

Jose Antonio Bujanda, 21, told the court on Feb. 26 that he saw
soldiers pull over Messrs. Huckabee and Quijas while he was washing
windows of cars lined up to cross the bridge into Texas. He said he
saw soldiers plant the suitcases in Mr. Huckabee's gray Dodge Ram.

"The two soldiers went to their own truck. I saw them take out two
suitcases, then put them in the gray truck," he said.

Abraham Antero Torres, a 19-year-old candy seller, testified that he
saw the same. "The military men that were behind took out two black
traveler's suitcases and put them into the Ram, and that was it," he
said.

A third witness, Fernando Monsivais, another window washer, told the
court: "The soldiers put the suitcases in the truck, the young men's
truck."

Mr. Bujanda was shot and killed in front of his home by an unknown
assailant on July 2. Attempts to reach Messrs. Torres and Monsivais to
comment were unsuccessful.

Alejandro Dominguez, a fingerprint expert hired by Mr. Huckabee's
family, testified in March that the marijuana packages showed no signs
of his fingerprints.

Court transcripts show a contradiction between when the Americans say
they were arrested, at 6:40 p.m. on the road, and the official
military account, which puts the time three hours later in a parking
lot alongside the road. Under the military's timeline, the pair were
arrested, taken to the base, then immediately taken to civil
authorities, as Mexican law requires, leaving no time for lengthy
interrogation.

A record of Mr. Huckabee's cellphone calls that evening, provided by
his family, appears consistent with his account. The bill shows calls
made throughout the day, ending at 6:38 p.m., minutes before he says
he was arrested.

Mr. de la Rosa, the ombudsman of the state human-rights office in
Ciudad Juarez, offers one theory about why the truck was stopped. A
Mexican relative of Mr. Quijas whose name is similar, he says, is
believed to be involved in the drug trade in town. Mr. de la Rosa
speculates that the arrest may have been a case of mistaken identity.
Mr. Quijas, who says he doesn't know his relative well, says that when
he arrived at the jail, other inmates confused him with the relative.

Mr. de la Rosa says that if the soldiers confused Mr. Quijas with his
relative, they wouldn't necessarily be inclined to turn him loose once
they discovered his true identity. Winning a conviction, he says,
would undermine potential complaints from the two men about abuse.

In its statement, the military said there was no confusion over the
men's identities.

As they await a verdict, the two Americans share a cell with four
other prisoners on the second floor of the Ciudad Juarez Center for
Social Readaptation. The crowded facility houses some dangerous men.
In June, three prison employees were shot by gang members.

Mr. Huckabee says defending himself in a foreign land hasn't been
easy. A translator recruited for one hearing this spring, according to
the transcript, said: "I don't speak English very well." The hearing
continued.

Mr. Huckabee has been through five defense lawyers, none of whom
speaks English. One lawyer who reviewed the case said recently he
believed that crimes result from "demons entering the body and taking
control, as Paul says in the Bible." One of his lawyers was shot and
wounded in May, while exiting the prosecutor's offices.

- - Jose de Cordoba contributed to this article.

[sidebar]

Mexico's Drug Killings

Nearly 23,000 people have died in drug-related violence since 2006,
according to the government, with northern border states experiencing
the worst of the violence.

[sidebar with map]

A Fateful Crossing

Shohn Huckabee and Carlos Quijas were arrested after a day trip into
Mexico.

1. Mr. Huckabee leaves an El Paso construction site with his friend Mr
Quijas.

2. The two cross into Ciudad Juarez via Bridge of the
Americas.

3. Mr. Huckabee drops off Mr. Quijas not far from the
bridge.

4. Mr. Huckabee takes his pickup truck to a repair
shop.

5. After picking up Mr. Quijas to drive home, the two are surrounded
by military trucks.

6. They are taken to a military compound at Military Base 5-C, where
they allege they were abused; the military denies this.

7. At a police station they are charged by civilian authorities with
drug possession.

8. The two men are taken to the Ciudad Juarez prison. where they are
being held on drug charges.