Mexican anti-drug troops held after testing positive

Forty-eight soldiers from a Mexican army unit assigned to find and destroy marijuana and poppy plots are being investigated for links with drug traffickers.

Acting on a tip-off, officials ordered the 600-man unit back to its base in the city of Guamuchil, in Sinaloa state, 680 miles north-west of Mexico City. General Gerardo Vega Garcia, The Defence Secretary, said 40 of the men had failed drug tests.

Although there has been a series of drugs scandals involving the military, General Vega Garcia defended the army's record, and said soldiers were responsible for two thirds of drug eradication efforts in Mexico. He said in a television interview: "Who could replace us, who else could do this work?"

The unit, the 65th Infantry Battalion, was on an anti-drug mission in the Sinaloa mountains. Members of Mexico's National Human Rights Commission are investigating reports that the soldiers have been held incommunicado and tortured. General Vega Garcia denied the reports, and added: "Nobody has been confined to base." He said two enlisted men had been arraigned before military courts and one lieutenant had fled. Other soldiers were unable adequately to explain quantities of money found in their possession. A total of 48 members of the unit were under suspicion or charges. All charges will be heard by courts martial.

Earlier, Benjamin Laureano Luna, president of the non-governmental Mexican Front for Human Rights, said the soldiers "have been confined to the barracks, cut off from communication and subjected to torture and cruel and degrading treatment".

Mr Luna said the matter was brought to his attention by wives of the soldiers who complained that their husbands had been held incommunicado for 11 days.

Finally, on Sunday, officials allowed a large group of women who had gathered outside the facilities to visit the soldiers, Mr Luna said.

"The women discovered that they had kept them [the soldiers] on their knees, with their hands behind their heads, that some had been hit or lost teeth and others had torture marks," Mr Luna said.

General Vega Garcia said the military would investigate and punish any alleged cases of mistreatment.

Law enforcement authorities estimate that more than 200 drug distributors operate in Sinaloa, on Mexico's Pacific coast. The state is the birthplace of countless drug traffickers and has been the site of bloody clashes between rival drug organisations.

Last month, Governor Juan Millan said that 80 per cent of the more than 270 killings in the state during the first five months of this year were drug-related. (AP)