Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto has fired Enrique Galindo, the chief of the country's federal police, on Monday (29 August). The sacking comes two weeks after Mexico's human rights commission published a report alleging that federal police were executing drug cartel members.

In a statement, Interior Secretary Miguel Angel Osorio Chong said: "In light of the recent events and on instructions of the president, Police Commissioner Enrique Galindo has been removed from his position."

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He added: "That is with the objective of facilitating that the corresponding authorities carry out an agile and transparent investigation in full view of citizens."

The National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) found that around 22 people were killed by police in Michoacan on 22 May 2015. The report alleged that guns were planted on some of the suspects by the police and that they had also moved some of the bodies, according to Associated Press.

Galindo will be replaced by Manelich Castilla Craviotto, who was previously in charge of the federal police's gendarmes force. The alleged massacre took place when federal police officers, along with a Black Hawk helicopter, raided a ranch where alleged members of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel were hiding.

Raul Gonzalez, the president of the CNDH, said police lied about their role during the organised swoop, stating that they moved seven bodies and shifted weapons to manipulate the scene. A total of 42 suspects and one police officer were killed in the incident.

Eyewitnesses saw that the tin roof of a barn, where several of the men were killed, was peppered with hundreds of bullet holes, which may have been fired from the helicopter. Police burned two bodies and tortured two of the people they arrested, Gonzalez added.

He said: "We established facts that imply grave human rights violations attributable to public servants of the federal police.

Family members and forensic experts are convinced that some of those present at the ranch were gunned down as they tried to flee. National Security Commissioner Renato Sales refutes claims that the police had executed anyone.

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