HOUSTON – Shohn Huckabee savors every moment, now that he’s back home. And for good reason—he spent the past two years behind bars in Mexico.
The U.S. Justice Department Parole Board released him just three months after he was transferred back to his home country to serve out the remainder of a five-year drug sentence.
Among the reasons for the transfer? The Justice Department said Huckabee was tortured while in custody in Mexico.
KHOU 11 News met Huckabee in April in the Cesaro Prison in Juarez, where he was locked up on drug charges in 2009 after crossing the border to get his truck repaired.
He said soldiers tortured him during questioning.
"They hit me with the butt of the rifle, electric shocks," Huckabee said, insisting that the drugs were planted in his truck. "I don’t see any justice. I see corruption. I see lots of corruption."
So now, he’s speaking out about those dark days in a Mexican jail. He said the corruption started at the lowest level, with the guards.
"Two to $3 for a favor here, favor there, all the way up to the Mexican Supreme Court wanting ‘X’ amount of dollars for you to be out next week," Huckabee said.
The 24-year-old Texan said he didn’t have the tens of thousands of dollars needed to buy his freedom.
So he had no choice but to stay behind bars.
While he was there, he survived a prison riot and the crackdown by authorities that followed.
Huckabee said he witnessed city police officers beating inmates with planks of wood.
What’s more, Huckabee said the police chief himself supervised – and participated in – the beatings.
Police Chief Julian Levzaola faced allegations of brutality in Tijuana before he took the job in Juarez.
He has denied those charges.
A spokesman for the Juarez Police Department said Levzaola was in the middle of a special operation and too busy patrolling the streets to comment on Huckabee’s accusations.
Huckabee also said the federal police who secured the prison after the riot used deadly force after the prisoners were disarmed.
"We’re lying in the area next to them on the basketball court. They had just taken all our clothes off and laid us all on the ground close together. And all we hear is [the sound of] the rifles," Huckabee said.
The federal police did not respond to phone calls and emails regarding the shooting.
Huckabee’s parents and wife, who visited him weekly while he was behind bars, support his decision to share his story now.
"The easiest thing to do would be just to leave and not tell the story, but it needs to be told because there are so many people over there that are hurting," said Kevin Huckabee, Shohn’s father. "It’s a tragedy for an entire nation that needs to be told to the rest of the world."
Some policy analysts in Washington suggest allegations of human rights violations only solidify their growing concerns about whether rule of law in Mexico is actually improving, and question whether these latest accusations will further dampen U.S. support for continued aid to help Mexico’s federal government fight drug traffickers and clean up its judicial system.
Under terms of the $1.4 billion Merida Initiative aid package, Mexico could lose 15 percent of the aid if there is evidence of human-rights violations. The State Department is required to issue a report in the first half of 2012 on whether Mexico is fulfilling its human rights requirements.
Shohn Huckabee signed deportation papers that stipulate he must stay out of Mexico for 10 years, but he said that won’t be a problem.
"I won’t ever return to Mexico. I don’t plan to visit there ever again because this could happen to anyone," he said.
