(Mexico City) Mexico’s armed forces are deliberately concealing information about the disappearance of 43 Mexican students in 2014, a group of independent experts denounced on Friday, claiming to have supporting evidence.
“We have seen documents, had access to documents, on an internal decision not to provide more information”, declared in a press conference Carlos Beristain, member of the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (GIEI) in charge of the ‘affair.
On the night of September 26 to 27, 2014, 43 students from a normal school in Ayotzinapa, in the state of Guerrero (south), disappeared in Iguala. They had tried to “requisition” buses there to demonstrate in Mexico City.
According to the official version, the young people were arrested by the local police in cahoots with the Guerreros Unidos gang, shot and burned in a landfill for reasons that remain unclear. Only three victims have been identified.
Mr. Beristain said that a document from the staff of Mexico’s Defense Secretariat had instructed to “provide a concerted response between the different sectors of the institution”.
According to him, witnesses explained that intelligence documents had been moved to other places in order to hide them, and these witnesses informed the president, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
The leader “directly requested a report on the matter,” said Colombian lawyer Angela Buitrago, also a member of the expert group.
Mme Buitrago added that Mr. Lopez Obrador would receive, for this purpose, representatives of the armed forces next week.
She also specified that the GIEI, a body created in 2015 by an agreement between the Mexican government and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), had “renewed” elements of the investigation so that the prosecution could “reactivate” arrest warrants against around twenty soldiers involved.
These orders were rescinded in September.
And among those issued in August against 83 suspects, several remain pending, especially when they target officials in post, recalled Mr.me Buitrago.
On March 22, Mexican authorities announced the arrest of nine Guerrero police officers suspected of having participated in the crime. In January, the United States extradited a former police officer also implicated.
To date, the highest ranking official arrested in this case is ex-prosecutor Jesus Murillo Karam, author of the official version that the military is not responsible.