Petition to free Capt. Cordero tops goal

PALMER — When Erick Cordero started a petition to try and get human rights groups to consider taking up his brother’s case, he thought it’d take weeks to reach his goal of 1,000 signatures.

What he didn’t count on was one determined teenager.

Cordero, a former member of the Mat-Su Borough School Board and former chief of staff to state Rep. Lynn Gattis, is from Mexico. His brother, Captain Victor Hugo Cordero, was the head of a municipal police department in the state of Durango when his entire department was arrested two years ago. Since then, the family has not seen him in person. His family has received death threats. Prisoners who have since released have told stories of Captain Cordero being tortured.

Captain Cordero has signed a confession saying he worked with drug cartels in the area. Cordero says his brother’s confession was forced. He believes the cartels took him into custody to get their own people installed in his place.

His brother’s kidnapping happened just as he started working in Juneau working with Gattis. The stress eventually led him to resign. Still, he kept it a secret, worrying that too much publicity might put his brother in danger.

Two years on, Cordero said he feels more confident stepping forward. He set up the petition and he started talking to the media. He was targeting people he knew in Alaska. But the message had arguably it’s greatest effect in Mexico.

Captain Cordero’s son is a high school student in Mexico.

“My nephew he started to look at the petition and then he watched the video and he read the Frontiersman article and he just felt like, ‘oh my God, I can do something’ so he created a flier and he went to school and started giving the flier to his friends and then they started texting each other and posting stuff to Facebook and Twitter and next thing you know like four hours later we had 1,000 signatures,” Cordero said.

He set up the petition on Jan. 14. The 1,000th signature was added on Jan. 22.

Having reached his goal, Cordero closed out the online petition. But then he got a call from his nephew.

“Two days ago he texted me saying, ‘we need it open, we need it open. The principal of my school took it upon himself to send a message to all the students,’” Cordero said.

So Cordero e-mailed the website’s administrators and got them to re-open the petition. As of Thursday afternoon it had 1,275 signatures. It’s still open at tinyurl.com/CaptainCordero.

Cordero said he’s sent the petition and a letter drafted — in Spanish, helpfully enough — by Alaska Rep. Cathy Munoz — to Amnesty International.

The human rights group had already told Cordero’s family they don’t get involved in individuals’ cases but he’s hoping that the petition will move it to reconsider.

He said he also plans to send the petition to Human Rights Watch, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, the National Commission on Human Rights in Mexico and an official that works on human rights at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico.

He said it’s been great hearing from people who have said they support him. His wife has had support from a lot of people, too, he said.

But, really, the most inspiring part has been the change in his nephew. The teen had seemed kind of withdrawn.

“This is a kid that lost his dad two years ago and all of a sudden he is excited about doing something that he thinks is going to make a difference and we’re hoping that it does,” Cordero said.

Contact Andrew Wellner at 352-2270 or andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com.