Acapulco, Mexico, Feb 8, 2018 / 19:00 pm
The Bishop of Chilpancingo-Chilapa, Mexico denied that Fr. Germain Muñiz Garcia, who was murdered on a Mexican highway Feb. 5 along with Fr. Iván Añorve Jaimes, had any connection to organized crime, as the Guerrero State Prosecutor's Office has recently claimed.
In a statement released Feb 7, Bishop Salvador Rangel Mendoza said that Fr. Muñiz Garcia "was never connected to any criminal gang."
However, he said that the deceased priest "had knowledge, by the very nature of his pastoral work, of some gangs operating in that area, since being a pastor and a public person he had to travel through the area where those gangs were based in order to to serve the different communities."
The Mexican bishop responded in his statement to the accusations lodged by the Guerrero State Prosecutor's Office, which claimed that the murdered priest belonged to "a criminal gang, by reason of the photographs and notes that circulated on the priest's social media," posted months prior, where he is seen with a rifle alongside masked criminals.