Protestors demand release of jailed Mexican leader

Mexico City

Scores of protesters gathered at Mexico City's Monument to the Revolution on Saturday to demand the release of a jailed leader of a vigilante movement who fought against a powerful drug cartel.

About 60 protesters marched in the rain to call for the release of Jose Manuel Mireles, who was arrested last year after waging a campaign against powerful drug gangs in the violence-plagued state of Michoacan in western Mexico.

The protesters held placards reading "I am Mireles" and "Stop institutional kidnapping." Mireles, a doctor who became the most famous figure of Michoacan's vigilante movement, was arrested in June 2014 after his armed group entered a town, despite a pact that the vigilantes made with the government to disarm.

His arrest came a month after the government folded the vigilante movement into an officially sanctioned "rural defense" force, a move that Mireles opposed. He was charged on drugs- and weapons-related offenses.  

Saturday's demonstration was led by Hipolito Mora, one of the group's members, who said he met with officials in the attorney general's office to demand the release of Mireles and more than 350 vigilantes also apparently detained.

He said he was hopeful Mireles would be out of jail soon.  "I am sure that Dr Mireles will be released in the near future," said Mora, a lemon farmer. 

But he vowed to continue protesting if the group is not allowed to retain its independence.  "If the government fails to do its job and leave us alone, we have to fight," he told reporters.

Mireles, Mora and other local farmers founded vigilante militias in 2013 to fight off the cult-like Knights Templar drug cartel. The gang's leaders have all been detained, severely weakening a cartel that had terrorized the state for years through murder, kidnapping and extortion, but violence persists in Michoacan.

This month, the attorney general's office said it was dropping its opposition to a petition to free Mireles, though an official said prosecutors would not drop the drugs and weapons charges against him.