SAN CRISTOBAL DE LAS CASAS, Mexico - Police arrested a Roman Catholic teacher after discovering a cache of arms and explosives in his cottage in southernmost Chiapas state, authorities said Monday.
Acting on an anonymous tip, police in the village of San Juan Chamula, on the outskirts of the mountain city of San Cristobal De Las Casas, stormed a home belonging to Cecilio Pathistan Lopez on May 8.
They arrested the Tzotzil Mayan and teacher of Catholic doctrine after finding a collection of weapons including an AR-15 rifle and a pair of mortars, police said Monday.
Last week's operation marked the third time authorities had searched Pathistan Lopez's residence after receiving reports he was stockpiling weapons, a police spokesman said. Police found no weapons during the first two operations, he said.
Local authorities refused to discuss the case further, but Gustavo Andrade, vicar at San Juan's only Catholic church, said that the weapons were planted by Protestant leaders.
Andrade said Pathistan Lopez's arrest came three days after Protestant groups in San Juan said they would attack him and three other Mayan Catholics unless they stopped holding classes and preaching Catholicism in the area.
"Mr. Pathistan Lopez is an innocent man," Andrade said. "The truly sad fact is that the inhabitants of his community are the guilty ones."
Local Protestant leaders could not be reached to comment on Andrade's charges late Monday.
There has been division between Catholic and Protestant groups in the communities outside San Cristobal since 1997, when hundreds of locals began converting to Protestant evangelical groups en masse.