In Mexico seven police officers have been charged with torturing three women who were witnesses to a deadly incident in the small town of Tlatlaya.

In 2014, soldiers in the Mexican Army opened fire on a group of people in a warehouse in Tlatlaya, killing 22 suspected criminals, most of whom had already surrendered.

The incident, which happened on June 30, 2014, sparked international outrage. As quoted in the Christian Science Monitor, Jose Miguel Vivanco, the head of the New York-based advocacy group Human Rights Watch Americas division, said, “This case was the object of a deliberate cover-up by the highest authorities in Mexico, both civil and military,” adding that: “We have before us two crimes, the massacre and the cover-up.”

As reported in the BBC, the three women who witnessed the massacre say that the officers tortured them in order to coerce them into corroborating the army's version of what occurred. Although the soldiers involved say that those that died did so in a shoot-out, the fact that only one police officer was injured in the course of the long gun battle raised serious suspicions.

Mexico's Human Rights Commission has concluded in its report that at least 12, but perhaps as many as 15, of the victims had been executed in the warehouse.

One of the three women who had survived the warehouse masacre said that most of those that were killed had been shot in cold blood. All three of the witnesses have claimed they were threatened and tortured by police officers questioning them about the events, instructing them to get behind the army's story.

Aside from the seven police officers that were charged with torture, three soldiers have also charged with murder and seven were charged with breach of duty.

None of the cases have yet gone to trial.