MEXICO-VIOLENCE/STUDENTS International experts dismiss Mexico's account of apparent student massacre

Record ID: 141782

  • Title: MEXICO-VIOLENCE/STUDENTS International experts dismiss Mexico's account of apparent student massacre
  • Date: 6th September 2015
  • Summary: COCULA, GUERRERO, MEXICO (FILE) (REUTERS) INVESTIGATOR WORKING IN THE AREA WHERE THE STUDENTS' BODIES WERE BELIEVED TO HAVE BEEN INCINERATED BURNED AREA WHERE THE DUMP WAS VARIOUS OF INVESTIGATORS WORKING AT THE SITE GENERAL VIEW OF AREA WHERE DUMP HAD BEEN LOCATED
  • Embargoed: 21st September 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Mexico
  • Country: Mexico
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVACOXLMITH643VNTRQYCAON9LRS
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Mexico's account of the abduction and apparent massacre of 43 students last year does not add up, a team of international experts said on Sunday (September 6), citing deep flaws in the government's investigation and dismissing its claims that the victims were incinerated in a garbage dump.
    The case of the missing 43 students caused an international outcry after they were abducted in the city of Iguala in southwest Mexico on Sept. 26.
    The government's failure to capture the killers or even persuade Mexicans that its investigation was serious has hit President Enrique Pena Nieto's reputation, and the report on
    Sunday was certain to put more pressure on him.
    Commissioned by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) and conducted by respected investigators from Chile, Colombia, Guatemala and Spain, it blasts holes in the government's central claim that the students were burned to ashes in the nearby town of Cocula.
    "The flame of seven metres would have had to tilt toward the dump igniting all the plastic that still existed. It is a rather dry dump and therefore there should have been a forest fire, a fires that would have burned this whole area. For all these reasons, the GEI (interdisciplinary group of experts) has formed the belief that these boys were not incinerated in the dump of Cocula," one of the investigators, Francisco Cox, told reporters on Sunday.
    Relatives carrying placards with pictures of the abducted students present shouted "It was the state!" as the investigators announced their findings.
    So far, only one of the missing students has been identified from the badly charred remains found at the dump.
    Pena Nieto's government says the students were abducted by corrupt local police, working in league with a local drug gang, who confused the students with members of a rival gang.
    Citing confessions of the alleged perpetrators, it says the police then handed them over to members of the local cartel, known as "Guerreros Unidos" (United Warriors), who took them to the local dump and incinerated them.
    A Reuters report published this week showed the government probe was plagued by a litany of errors, and that key parts may need to be redone.
    The IACHR experts were unable to determine what happened to the students, saying that much is still unknown, but they did suggest avenues for closer investigation.
    They flagged the fact that missing evidence includes a bus seen on security camera footage from the night of the attack.
    The students commandeered several buses that night and local police opened fire on them.
    In their report, the experts suggested the missing bus may have been carrying a shipment of cash or drugs, citing the fact that prosecutors in Chicago found that the Guerreros Unidos group transports heroin from Iguala to the United States in secret bus compartments.
    The issue should be investigated, and may be the motive for the attack, the experts said.
    "That is part of another case, it is not case that has to do with what we are analysing, but it is a case of Iguala and an investigation into the use of buses to transport narcotics. The group thinks we should consider whether this is a credible hypothesis and you have to get to the bottom of the question over the relation of this fifth bus with the possible motivation of the attack on the students," said investigator Carlos Beristain.
    Over the past few months, they have conducted dozens of interviews with detainees and witnesses, and examined the possible role of an army battalion located only a few blocks from where most of the students are believed to have been abducted.
    The team was denied interviews, however, with 26 soldiers who had contact with the students that night.
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