MEXICO: The former attorney general of Mexico was detained in connection with the disappearance of 43 students in 2014. The person in charge of investigating the crime, Jess Murillo Karam, was accused of torture and forced displacement of people.
While traveling by bus through Iguala on their way to protest in Mexico City, the teenagers disappeared. Nothing is known about their demise other than bone fragments found with three of them.
On the evening of 26 September 2014, local police opened fire on buses carrying students; however, the question is what happened next. Massive demonstrations against impunity and government support for organised crime have been launched in Mexico in the wake of their unexplained disappearance, which has shocked the world.
Jesus Murillo Karam, who was detained on Friday, was in charge of a controversial investigation into what happened to the students in 2015, blaming cartel members for allegedly killing them and burning their bodies.
Independent specialists and the family of the missing students criticized his conclusions for being flawed and for not placing any blame on the armed forces, even though they were The Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), led by Karam, accused those behind Friday’s arrests of political motives in tweet. The PRI is no longer in power.
More high-ranking government officials have been detained in connection with the students’ disappearance than any other high-ranking government official to date.
Investigators believe the students were taken into custody by rogue police officers, handed over to a drug cartel who mistakenly believed they belonged to a rival group, and then murdered.
A truth commission set up by current president Andrés Manuel López Obrador on Thursday accused the soldiers of contributing to the massacre, if not directly, then at least indirectly through incompetence.
According to AFP, Alejandro Encinas, president of the commission and Mexico’s Deputy Interior Minister, said “Their actions, omissions or complicity facilitated the disappearance and killing of the students.” He continued, “However, the full role of military people needs further investigation.”
President López Obrador revealed earlier this year that navy personnel were being investigated for allegedly tampering with evidence, including at the landfill where human remains were discovered.On Friday, he demanded that any soldiers or government agents responsible for the disappearances be brought to justice.
According to the AFP news agency, the Mexican president said that, “The publication of this terrible, cruel circumstance and the simultaneous punishment of those involved helps to prevent these reprehensible events from ever happening again.”
Also Read: Mexico Rescues 22 Foreigners Abducted From A Hotel
