FAMILIES SAY MEXICO TORTURING SOLDIERS OVER DRUG LINKS

MEXICO CITY -- About 600 soldiers have been detained for 11 days and
tortured during an investigation into alleged links to drug traffickers, a
human-rights group alleged yesterday.

The soldiers are being held in facilities in Guamuchil, Sinaloa, 680 miles
northwest of Mexico City, said Benjamin Laureano Luna, president of the
Mexican Front for Human Rights.

"They have been confined to the barracks, cut off from communication and
subjected to torture and cruel and degrading treatment," Luna said.

Officials from the Department of Defense would not confirm or deny the
detentions or comment on the allegations of abuse.

Luna said that the matter was brought to his attention by wives of the
soldiers who complained that their husbands had been held incommunicado.

Finally, on Sunday, officials allowed a large group of women who had
gathered outside the facilities to visit with the soldiers, Luna said.

"The women discovered that they had kept the soldiers on their knees, with
their hands behind their heads, that some had been hit or lost teeth and
others had torture marks," Luna said.

Authorities estimate that more than 200 drug distributors operate in
Sinaloa, a state in western Mexico where marijuana and poppies are grown in
the Sierra Madre mountains.