Mexico Sentences Mass Murderers of Women to Almost 700 Years in Jail

MEXICO CITY (Sputnik) — Five men each have been sentenced to 697 years in prison for mass murdering young women in Mexico, Al Jazeera reported Wednesday, citing a Mexican prosecutor.

In March, a Mexican court ruled the killing of 11 young women in 2010 as a gender-driven murder, after initially being labelled as suicide. The victims were found in 2012.

"They deceived girls to recruit them for prostitution and use them as drug distributors. When they weren't 'useful' anymore, they took their lives and dumped their bodies in the Navajo stream of the Juarez Valley," the prosecutor said in a statement.

At Tuesday's hearing, the killers were also obliged to pay $550,000 for damages to the families of the victims.

The 697-year sentence is an unprecedented move for Mexico where six women are assassinated everyday without punishment, according to the National Citizen Femicide Observatory.

Earlier this week, Mexico’s attorney general’s office disclosed the discovery of 129 bodies in scores of secret graves in southwest Mexico, which further highlighted the scope of forced disappearances that plagues the country.