The High Court of Mexico ruled that charges of genocide could be brought against former president, Luis Echeverria, for the 1971 alleged killings and alleged disappearances of various student protestors at the National Polytechnical Institution by plainclothes officers (known as “Falcons”) during Mexico’s “Guerra Sucia,” a violent campaign against dissidents. The High Court ruled that the statute of limitations had not run out on this crime, as the thirty year countdown only took effect in 1976, when Echeverria left office. Though Echeverria is one of the few presidents of Mexico to be indicted for human rights abuses, he denies the charge of genocide, his lawyer calling it “an absurdity.”