Zia Zafar, 31, a U.S. citizen and the lead suspect in the January 6 shooting of a consular officer from the U.S. Consulate General in Guadalajara, has been returned to the United States after being expelled from Mexico.
Zafar was arraigned on Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia on a charge of attempted murder of an internationally protected person. The magistrate ordered Zafar held pending a detention hearing scheduled for Friday, January 13.
Zafar is alleged to have ambushed consulate staffer Christopher Ashcroft as he left a Guadalajara shopping mall following a gym session.
Surveillance video taken at the Sania Mall on Avenida Vallarta shows a man dressed in maroon medical scrubs firing a single round at Ashcroft as he left the complex’s car park driving a Honda Fit at around 6:20 p.m. on Friday, January 6. The assailant is seen running away quickly after firing the shot.
Ashcroft was wounded in the chest and rushed to a private hospital, where, fortunately, doctors were able to stabilize him.
Shortly after the incident, the U.S. Consulate General in Guadalajara and other agencies posted segments of the video surveillance tapes on various social media platforms. Meanwhile, the FBI announced a reward of $US20,000 for information leading to the arrest of the aggressor.
The videos showed a man, believed to be Zafar, stalking Ashcraft in the mall as he left the gym and paid for his parking ticket. Close ups of the assailant suggested he was wearing a dark wig, in addition to sunglasses.
Other images posted online showed the aggressor paying for items at a Starbucks cafe in the mall.
According to police and media reports, information received that evening led authorities to a house in Colonia Providencia.
Neighbors said they were awakened by dozens of police vehicles descending on their street, Calle Alcamo, in the early hours of Sunday.
Zafar was detained in a joint operation that involved officials from several agencies, including Mexican Immigration and the FBI.
Media reports said police seized a .38-caliber Spanish-made handgun, 16 bags containing 336 grams of marijuana, and a Honda Accord, model 2000, with California plates. A black wig and dark glasses were also found in the house, it was reported.
Another report suggested the suspect was traced through credit card information obtained after he paid for coffee in the Sania mall.
As the incident gained international media attention, the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City issued a security message for U.S. citizens in the Guadalajara area: “As the investigation into the January 6 shooting of the U.S. Consulate employee continues, U.S citizens in the Guadalajara area are urged to restrict their movements outside their homes and places of work to those truly essential … They should also take care not to fall into predictable patterns for those movements that are essential. They should vary the times and routes of their movements.”
It is not clear what information about the motive for the shooting was available to U.S. authorities when they made the announcement, but the State Department was obviously not prepared to take any risks. One reason for the somewhat dramatic message may be that all security warnings issued to employees at U.S. diplomatic missions abroad must also be relayed to Americans living or traveling in the same region.
Once in custody, Zafar was flown quickly to Mexico City. On Monday, officers from the federal Attorney General’s Office (PGR) and Mexican Immigration handed the suspect over to FBI agents at the Toluca Airport. He was flown to Dulles International Airport and made an initial appearance in a federal court on Tuesday.
Jorge Lara Rivera, a senior legal official at the PGR, said Zafar was expelled immediately from Mexico due to irregularities in his immigration status. Zafar was in Mexico on a student visa.
This is a common method of quickly deporting U.S. citizens who have fled to Mexico to escape the criminal justice system in their homeland.
It is unusual, however, for the procedure to be employed after a crime has been committed on Mexican territory by a foreign national.
Lara Rivera added that had Zafar’s immigration papers been in order, he would have faced the corresponding legal proceedings in Mexico.
According to federal authorities, Zafir first arrived in Guadalajara in 2012 to study medicine at the Universidad Autonoma de Guadalajara. His last entry was in November 2016.
A report from ABC7 in Los Angeles indicated that Zafar had lived in the affluent Chino Hills neighborhood of the city with his mother and sister.
Neither Mexican or U.S. authorities have commented on the motive for the attack. It is unclear whether the alleged assailant was known to Ashcraft, who had worked at the consulate since 2015.
Ashcraft was airlifted to the United States on Wednesday.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry praised Mexico for acting quickly to arrest the suspect.
“On behalf of President Obama and the people of the United States, I want to thank the government of Mexico for their swift and decisive arrest of a suspect in the heinous attack against our Foreign Service Officer colleague,’’ Kerry said. ‘‘My thoughts and prayers remain with this officer and his family during this difficult time. I wish him a speedy recovery.”
Many comments on Mexican social media sites regarding the case have highlighted the speed at which the suspect was detained. A common theme of posts has been that Mexico’s law enforcement agencies only seem to spring into action when a crime is committed against a foreigner.