A federal judge in Toluca has absolved Israel Vallarta Cisneros of kidnapping and organised-crime charges, ordering his immediate release from the Altiplano maximum-security prison after almost 20 years in pre-trial detention. Judge Mariana Vieyra Valdés of the Juzgado Tercero de Distrito de Procesos Penales Federales ruled that prosecutors failed to present evidence linking Vallarta to the alleged 2005 abduction of six people. President Claudia Sheinbaum and Interior Secretary Rosa Icela Rodríguez confirmed the ruling at the daily press briefing, noting that Vallarta’s case was marred by allegations of torture and due-process violations. His 2005 arrest, carried out under then security chief Genaro García Luna, was later exposed as a televised reenactment; co-accused French national Florence Cassez was freed by the Supreme Court in 2013 on similar grounds. Vallarta’s lawyers had filed more than ten appeals and six amparo suits during his incarceration. In 2022 the UN Committee Against Torture urged Mexico to address his complaints of abuse. Sheinbaum said any request for reparations must be initiated by Vallarta, who walked out of Altiplano on 1 August, closing one of the country’s most contentious criminal cases.