Summary Hipolito Mora said he was betrayed and that his family was being harassed by a rival.
MORELIA, Mexico (AFP) - A founder of so-called self-defense militias that defied a drug cartel in western Mexico declared his innocence on charges that he was behind the murders of two fellow vigilantes.
Standing behind bars after a judge ordered him held pending trial in Michoacan state, Hipolito Mora said he was betrayed and that his family was being harassed by a rival.
"I killed nobody. These charges are false. Everybody knows I m innocent," said the grey-bearded lime grower, stripped of his trademark cowboy hat. "I feel betrayed by many people."
Judge Juan Salvador Alonso told Mora at a prison near the state capital Morelia that there were "enough elements" to suspect that he participated in the killings of Rafael Sanchez Mena and Jose Luis Torres, whose charred bodies were found on March 8.
With local police failing to act, Mora organized one of Michoacan s first vigilante forces in his hometown of La Ruana in February 2013 to repel the cult-like Knights Templar drug cartel, which had been terrorizing communities.
The self-defense militias grew and eventually took control of security in around 20 towns and began to work hand-in-hand with federal authorities earlier this year.
But Mora s arrest and signs of divisions within the vigilante groups have raised concerns that the militias could be a source of more violence in restive Michoacan.
The two men Mora is accused of killing were loyal to vigilante leader Luis Antonio Torres, alias "El Americano."
A day before his arrest last week, hundreds of men from Torres faction entered La Ruana to expel Mora, who was evacuated by a federal police helicopter before his arrest.
"El Americano is persecuting my family and my followers and he has searched their homes," Mora said.
