MEXICO-VIOLENCE Mexican commission finds flaws in investigation into 43 missing students feared massacred

Record ID: 149508

  • Title: MEXICO-VIOLENCE Mexican commission finds flaws in investigation into 43 missing students feared massacred
  • Date: 24th July 2015
  • Summary: COCULA, GUERRERO, MEXICO (FILE) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF EXPERTS AT CRIME SCENE WHERE STUDENTS REMAINS WERE ALLEGEDLY DUMPED GENERAL VIEW OF CRIME SCENE VAN AND PEOPLE NEAR CRIME SCENE VARIOUS OF EXPERTS CARRYING AWAY EVIDENCE
  • Embargoed: 8th August 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Mexico
  • Country: Mexico
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA1MTR4Z861FQL64TIU7D37CHBU
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: THIS EDIT CONTAINS MATERIAL WHICH WAS ORIGINALLY 4:3
    An independent Mexican commission said on Thursday (July 23) it found serious flaws in the investigation into the apparent massacre of 43 students last year, dealing a fresh blow to President Enrique Pena Nieto over a scandal that has battered his administration.
    The case became a symbol of impunity over disappearances and plunged Pena Nieto into his deepest crisis after the 43 trainee teachers were abducted and very likely murdered by a drug gang working with corrupt police in southwest Mexico last September.
    A report by the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) said the attorney general's office, which has only identified the remains of one of the 43, still had not compiled basic information about the victims, who came from poor backgrounds.
    Nor had it properly investigated 11 suspects in the case, the CNDH found.
    "The case of Iguala has proven the barbarity that we've reached, and this is just one case, the abandonment of the law and forgetting justice. Iguala is unfortunately another grave situation that has occurred and other grave situations that have taken place and others that have happened after, and which are evident. While authorities do not watch after human rights when they occur then we will continue to be witnesses to similar incidents that we do not want," said CNDH President, Luis Raul Gonzalez.
    The report adds to a list of woes for Pena Nieto's government, which suffered major embarrassment this month when Mexico's most notorious drug lord, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, escaped from maximum security prison in a tunnel.
    The attorney general's office said the drug gang had mistakenly identified the students, who belonged to a college with a radical left-wing tradition, as a threat and had them killed after clashes in Iguala the night of September 26.
    CNDH's commissioner on the case, Jose Trinidad Larrieta, called for an investigation.
    "We see the great necessity for an investigation to be carried out as to how this could have happened (with) the criminal group known as Los Rojos. There were particular references including territorial disputes between both criminal groups which is a theme which was linked to the disappearances," he added.
    According to Mexican authorities, the remains of the students were incinerated, ground up and tossed in a river, the government found. Tests identified the remains of one victim in December.
    But the remaining families are still waiting for conclusive proof about the fate of their loved-ones.
    A United Nations watchdog this year said the case was just one of thousands of "disappearances" carried out with the apparent complicity of security forces.
    In the Iguala probe, the CNDH denounced the use of arbitrary detentions and torture to obtain confessions in the case, and criticized the lack of testimony from people involved.
    The commission also complained that prosecutors had only used statements from 36 soldiers, instead of interviewing everyone who had been in the area. Iguala is home to a barracks, and questions have been raised about the army's failure to help.
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