Arson caused Mexico day care tragedy: parents

Parents of 49 children who died in a Mexican day care fire in 2009 has charged that the blaze began as an act of arson aimed at destroying incriminating government documents in a warehouse next door.
A lawyer for the families yesterday said a complaint was handed to the federal attorney general's office after the parents discovered several new pieces of evidence to contradict previous conclusions that it was an accident.
The parents allege that the fire was intentionally set in a warehouse rented by the Sonora state government's treasury department to get rid of documents related to an USD 800 million state debt, said the attorney, Gabriel Alvarado.

The fire spread to the ABC day care center when 141 children were inside, with the only two emergency exit doors closed, killing 49 of them and injuring another 70. The preschool was under the authority of the Mexican Social Security Institute.
"We knew it from the beginning. This is the pain and struggle that we have been going through until now because we knew in our hearts that it was intentional," a tearful Ofelia Vazquez, whose son German Paul died at the age of four, told AFP at the presentation of a documentary on the tragedy.
The official investigation concluded that the fire started when the air conditioning overheated in the paper-filled warehouse in Hermosillo, the capital of the northwestern state.

But the parents charge that three suspects, including the bodyguard of an aide to then governor Eduardo Bours, ignited the fire to destroy the compromising documents.

The bodyguard was found dead with nine bullet wounds two months after the fire, Alvarado said.
A spokesman for the attorney general's office confirmed that it had received the complaint and said the evidence provided by the families would be examined to determine whether it warrants an investigation.
Authorities have investigated 28 officials for negligence in the case, but all remain free on bail.