By Daily Mail Reporter
21st July 2011
The trial of a suspected 14-year-old American citizen hitman started in Mexico
Edgar Jimenez, known as 'El Ponchis' -The Cloaked One - is suspected of the gruesome murders and be-headings of at least seven people.
He is believed to have worked as a hitman for a Morelos drugs gang, based just outside of Mexico City.
The boy was caught late last year as he attempted to flee to the U.S., having boarded a plane in the city of Cuernavaca.
The army said he was with his two sisters, one of whom was reportedly the lover of a cartel boss.
They were apparently trying to get to Tijuana on the U.S. border to then travel to San Diego where their mother lives.
One of his sisters, aged 16, was also allegedly involved in the criminal gang.
She apparently disposed of her brother's victims by dumping the bodies on streets and freeways, officials said.
Another teen sister accompanying them is not suspected of being involved with the cartels.
If found guilty, Jimenez faces a sentence of three years - the maximum allowed under Mexican law because of his age.
The trial is expected to last about three weeks.
A video shot by CNN in December showed the boy being interrogated by Mexican military authorities after his capture.
In the video, an interrogator asks: 'How many have you killed,' as Jimenez responds, 'four'.
The soldier then asks: 'How did you execute them.'
The boy calmly adds: 'I slit their throats.
'I participated in four executions, but I did it drugged and under threat that if I didn't they would kill me.'
Jimenez and his siblings were living in a poor neighbourhood of Jiutepec, a working-class suburb of Cuernavaca, known as a weekend getaway for Mexico City residents.
The area has an industrial area with Nissan, Unilever and other factories and has rustic single-level concrete homes and some farms.
Many youths have been used by drug cartels in their bloody battles against the government and each other, but the story of El Ponchis may be the most shocking.
A YouTube video that emerged last year sparked talk of a child hit man - said by some to be as young as 12.
After he was captured, Jimenez said he was kidnapped at the age of 11 and forced to work for the Cartel of the South Pacific, a branch of the splintered Beltran Leyva gang, and that he had participated in at least four decapitations.
Mexican newspaper La Razon reported last month that El Ponchis was paid $3,000 for each murder he committed.
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