Official: witnesses in army slaying wrongly jailed

Two survivors of a mass slaying by Mexican soldiers who have been jailed for weapons possession are innocent and should be released immediately, the outgoing president of the National Commission on Human Rights says.

Raul Plascencia told The Associated Press that the two women, who his commission says were tortured and sexually threatened into backing the army's version of the incident, were not affiliated with the 22 suspected gang members who were killed. Rather, they were prostitutes hired to accompany a leader of the group that met in an abandoned warehouse in southern Mexico on June 29. The leader was one of two men who escaped from the troops early on June 30.