An AK-47 rifle bullet ended the life of Mexican Gabriel Cuen Buitimea on an Arizona ranch in January 2023. The alleged shooter, George Alan Kelly, owner of the 68-hectare ranch in Kino Springs, was free of charges. on Monday.
After more than a month of trial, jurors were unable to reach a unanimous decision and the prosecution decided to dismiss the case.
But who was Gabriel Cuen? What was he doing on that ranch in Arizona near the border? And, most importantly: why did they kill him? Was it an accident, an act of self-defense, or cold-blooded murder?
BBC Mundo spoke with relatives of Gabriel Cuen and investigated the facts to try to shed light on this case.
Two versions
Prosecutors based their accusation on the testimonies of two Mexicans who accompanied Gabriel when the incident occurred.
They explained that on the afternoon of January 30, 2023, a group of undocumented and unarmed migrants were passing through Kelly’s ranch after having crossed the border.
Without prior warning, prosecutors stated, the farmer fired “at least 8 rounds” of gunfire at the group, one of which fatally hit the victim.
AK-47 shell casings were found in Kelly’s home. The defense presented a completely different version.
He stated that the defendant saw a group of Mexicans, apparently members of a cartel, dressed in camouflage clothing trying to shoot him with AK-47 rifles.
Kelly “fired several shots from his rifle” to “scare” the invaders, but “was careful to aim well above their heads,” according to the brief presented to the judge by his lawyer.
Therefore, the defense maintained that the farmer did not fire the bullet that killed Gabriel Cuen Buitimea.
And he hypothesized that the victim belonged to a criminal cartel and that it was a member of a rival organization who probably shot him.
He argued that the area is a regular scene of violence by Mexican drug cartels and that they also often use AK-47s.
The victim
Buaysiacobe is a farming town of just over 4,000 inhabitants in the south of the Mexican state of Sonora, about 8 hours by road from the border with the United States.
Gabriel Cuen Buitimea was born there 49 years ago, in a house made of adobe where his mother, his widow, and some of his six siblings still live.
Discovering who this Mexican, father of 7 children, really was and why he entered the United States irregularly is key to knowing which of the two versions is closer to reality.
Was he an economic migrant like so many others or did he work for a dangerous drug cartel?
BBC Mundo spoke with several of his relatives and even a former police commissioner from his hometown, Buaysiacobe.
“We grew up in an adobe house. We needed everything. “We lived in extreme poverty,” Julián Cuen, 51, brother of the victim, who was nicknamed El Dengue in the town, explains to BBC Mundo.
His older brother assures that, like him, Gabriel earned his living as a day laborer since he was a child, growing tomatoes, onions or wheat for the landowners of the region. “He worked with us in the fields, earning $260 pesos (US$14.40) a day.”
The victim’s brother does not have his own phone, so we talk to him hurriedly on a colleague’s cell phone while they both work in the field.
Three minutes into the conversation he becomes impatient: “Come on, the bosses will run us out if they see us standing still!”
Before hanging up, he tells us that Gabriel was the main breadwinner for his 80-year-old mother, who had a heart condition, to whom he sent part of the little he earned as a day laborer.
His first cousin, Juan Manuel Buitimea, corroborated this information: “He was the one who was most devoted to my aunt, the one who was most attentive to her; “He talked to her on the phone and always sent her her little fair (her money).”
“When I was here I worked as a day laborer. He sometimes went to look for work in Hermosillo (the capital of Sonora), in tomato crops in the greenhouses or directly in the fields,” he added.
On occasions, his relatives explain, Gabriel crossed into the United States sporadically and clandestinely. “I was going to work there, because the fair is more productive than here,” his cousin tells us.
US federal records show that Gabriel Cuen Buitimea was deported for illegal entry on several occasions, most recently in 2016. In Mexico, according to testimonies collected by BBC Mundo, he had no problems with the law.
“He was calm, he was calm. He never got into trouble. I never knew that he was involved in lawsuits or, well, relaxing. He was always calm. What’s more, he avoided problems,” José Molina Alcalá, former police commissioner of Buaysiacobe, explains to us by phone.
“You know that here when people are weak and disastrous we all turn around, but that was not your case,” illustrates the former commissioner of Gabriel’s hometown, where he spent most of his life.
His ex-wife, who was also contacted by BBC Mundo, described him as “a good person who was only looking for a way to provide bread for his children.”
According to his relatives, he had not returned to Buaysicobe for more than a year because he had settled in Nogales.
This city of more than 250,000 inhabitants located on the border between Mexico and the United States is just 15 kilometers from Kino Springs, where El Dengue received the shot that ended his life.
The accused
The defendant, George Alan Kelly, remained on bail pending trial after posting $1 million bail.
The fund was contributed by donors on several fundraising platforms, including the Christian network GiveSendGo, among others, after the case achieved strong media relevance and conservative groups began a campaign to support the accused, whom they believe innocent.
“It is a tragedy that a simple farmer, who should have the protection of the government, has been abandoned and has to defend himself,” read the statement to attract donations.
“The government that caused this now wants to go after him. “This man should not have to spend a single night in jail,” he says. Many conservatives in the US took up Kelly’s cause.
And they supported the version of events presented by the farmer, whom they see as a victim of the lack of control at the border crossings and the proliferation of Mexican organized crime in the south of the country.
The elderly man also has no criminal record nor had he been involved in similar cases, according to official records and the American press.
The trial, which garnered strong media attention, became a scene of growing political and social polarization in the United States around sensitive issues such as border security, organized crime and immigration.
* This note was originally published on March 14, 2023 and updated on April 30 after the dismissal of the case by the prosecution.
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