Mexico police tortured suspects in Ciudad Juarez, human rights body says

Mexican police in violence-plagued Ciudad Juarez tortured suspects to force confessions that they killed two agents and participated in a car-bomb attack, CNN cited Mexico's human rights commission as saying.

"According to information and testimonies received, they were interrogated and tortured with the goal that they admitted guilt in the commission of homicide and that they were members of a gang," Mexico's National Human Rights Commission said in a statement Sunday.

Police had since dropped the accusations, but the suspects — arrested in August 2010 — remained in jail on drugs and weapons charges, according to the Associated Press.

The commission's statement described the situation as an "abuse of power" in the city, which shares a border with El Paso, Texas and, CNN wrote, "has been a hotspot in Mexico's drug war as rival cartels battle over turf."

It called for an investigation into six federal officers and a doctor who didn’t report signs of severe beating, the AP reported.

The five suspects should also receive reparations from police for physical and psychological treatment resulting from human rights violations, the commission said.

The Mexican federal police have reportedly not yet responded to requests for comment from the media.

(More from GlobalPost: Special report: 7 circles of Juarez)