Document:BBC report on the 2001 Mexican legislative assembly attack
report by BBC Subjects: 2001 Mexican legislative assembly attack
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The BBC had this report in report on October 12, 2001 but did not pulish about the attack. It was not made publicly available until 2023 when 'Nuts & Boltzmann' published it on the internet
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Mexico: Officials arrest armed Mexican, Israeli inside Congress building
October 12, 2001 | BBC Monitoring International Reports
Mexico, 10 October [local time]: The judicial authorities have detained two armed men. Both are presumed to be former military personnel; one of them is an Israeli citizen. These individuals attempted to get into Congress [the building], which is in the eastern part of Mexico City.
The arrest of the two individuals, one who said he was Mexican and the other Israeli, provoked a huge police mobilization this Wednesday [10 October] at the Congressional headquarters, known as the San Lazaro Palace.
Ignacio Cabrera, the social communications adviser for the presidency of the Chamber of Deputies' board of directors, said that the detainees are the Mexican Salvador Gerson Smike, and the Israeli Sar Ben Zui.
The source reported that both detainees said that they work for the Development of Private Security Systems company.
He explained that these individuals were found with a firearm and other instruments. For this reason, the Chamber's legal department handed them over to the proper authorities for allegedly intending to commit a crime.
The two individuals were also carrying a briefcase, which contained cables and a tube, "but we don't know anything else and the authorities are the ones that must decide what follows. We also do not know if they were carrying dynamite," he said.
Cabrera commented that both individuals said they wanted to enter the Chamber of Deputies and that this is all they had said. Obviously, they will have to make a sworn statement before the Office of the Public Prosecutor.
Cabrera said that Luis Alarcon, a security officer of the Chamber, had detained the two men. Luis Alarcon mentioned that the detainees were carrying an automatic 9-mm pistol with three clips and what was thought to be a grenade, which turned out to be a lighter, as well as tubes and cables.
The security officer explained that it has not yet been discovered how they had managed to enter the San Lazaro Legislative building but this matter and their motives for doing so are being investigated.
He was asked if the tubes and cables they were carrying could had been used to assemble an explosive device. He said that these materials could have been for making a grenade but this would have to be decided upon by the Office of the Public Prosecutor.
Luis Alarcon later said that one of the detainees does not speak English but that, through his partner, he said he is a colonel in the Israeli Special Forces. However, this could not be confirmed.
Former sugar refinery workers, who are conducting a sit-in inside San Lazaro, said that one of the individuals was posing as a photographer and taking pictures of everything around them. The sugar refinery workers said that both individuals were behaving in an odd manner, and upon taking a more thorough look at one of them, they could tell he was armed.
The alleged criminals were handed over to personnel from the Office of the Prosecutor General, who will be in charge of the corresponding investigations.
