A former Mexican attorney general has been arrested and ordered to issue warrants against 83 soldiers and military officers over the infamous disappearance of 43 students in 2014.
Jesús Murillo was arrested at his home in Mexico City on charges of forcible disappearance, torture, and obstruction of justice in the kidnapping and disappearance of student-teacher students in the southwestern state of Guerrero.
The attorney general’s office also released 83 warrants for the arrest of soldiers, police, Guerrero officials and gang members in connection with the case.
Murillo was attorney general from 2012 to 2015 under president Enrique Peña Nieto, during which time he oversaw the much-criticized investigation into the September 26, 2014 disappearance of college students. Rural Pedagogy Ayotzinapa.
The remains of three students were only found and identified, with the case haunting Mexico ever since.
Murillo announced in 2014 that students were killed and burned at a landfill by a drug gang, but the investigation alleges the use of torture, improper arrest, and mishandling of evidence, leading Most of the suspects were released.
President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador took office in 2018 and vowed to shed light on what happened. His administration has been trying to arrest another former top official, Tomas Zeron, since 2020, including asking Israel to extradite him last year.
The attorney general’s office said Murillo cooperated “without resistance”.
It comes a day after Mexico’s top human rights official, Alejandro Encinas, called the disappearance a “crime of the state” involving local, state and federal officials.
Mr Encinas told a news conference: “What happened?
Encinas said the highest levels of Peña Nieto’s administration orchestrated the cover-up, which included altering crime scenes and concealing links between authorities and criminals.
Murillo took over the case in 2014 and called the government’s findings “historical facts”.
According to that version, a local drug gang mistook the students for members of a rival group before killing them, incinerating their bodies in a landfill and then throwing the bodies into the river.
However, an international team of experts found a loophole in the account and the United Nations denounced arbitrary detention and torture in its investigation.
The phrase “historical truth” became synonymous with perceptions of corruption and retribution under Mr. Peña Nieto.
The lawyer for the Ayotzinapa student’s parents, Vidulfo Rosales, called on the government to make further arrests.
“There is still a lot of work to be done before we can think that this case has been resolved,” Mr. Rosales told Mexican television.
