Mexican officials detain suspects in massacre of members of Mormon sect

Mexico’s government said Sunday that it had detained multiple suspects in the slaying of several members of a fundamentalist Mormon sect with dual U.S.-Mexico citizenship.

An official with the office of Mexico’s attorney general told The New York Times that multiple suspects had been detained Sunday in an operation, though no other information was immediately available. The arrests followed the detention of another suspect in Mexico City earlier this month, according to the newspaper.

{mosads}Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador did not address the arrests Sunday at a public event celebrating his first year in office, but firmly stated that his government would not accept assistance from U.S. military forces on battling drug traffickers.

“We won’t accept any kind of intervention. We’re a free and sovereign country,” he said, according to the newspaper.

Nine members of the La Mora Mormon fundamentalist settlement in Sonora, Ariz., were killed in early November, while traveling to the Mexican state of Chihuahua for a wedding, by gunmen suspected to be working for an international drug cartel.

Their deaths caused widespread condemnation from U.S. lawmakers, including President Trump, who threatened to take action over the killings.

“This is the time for Mexico, with the help of the United States, to wage WAR on the drug cartels and wipe them off the face of the earth. We merely await a call from your great new president!” Trump tweeted in response.