CUERNAVACA, Mexico, July 18 (UPI) -- A confessed drug gang assassin, who recently turned 15, went on trial in Mexico Monday.
Edgar Jimenez, known as "El Ponchis," publicly admitted killing four men in Cuernavaca when he was arrested at the Tijuana airport in December, but the statement will be inadmissible because of reforms enacted to end confessions under torture, the Houston Chronicle reported.
Two older sisters, arrested with him, are being charged as adults. They were heading to visit their mother in San Diego where Jimenez was born.
Jimenez, one of an estimated 23,000 youths recruited by Mexican drug cartels, faces only three years in prison if convicted because he is a minor. As a U.S. citizen, he could move north of the border after prison.
His fate will be decided by a juvenile judge in Cuernavaca, south of Mexico City. The trial is being held in a secret location, closed to the media and the public for security reasons.
"Organized crime seeks out these young people because they face almost nothing as far as punishment," said Juan Carlos Castro, a juvenile court official.
Nearly 4,000 minors have been arrested in Mexico's drug wars, government figures show, and a child welfare group says 1,300 have been killed.
