Mexico Arrests Former Top Prosecutor Leading the Investigation Into Disappearance of 43 Ayotzinapa Students

Mexico has arrested a former top prosecutor who led the investigation into the disappearance of 43 Ayotzinapa students in 2014.

Former prosecutor Jesus Murillo Kuram was arrested on charges of forced disappearance, torture, and obstruction of justice. Al Jazeera reported that his capture was the highest profile arrest so far in the case.

Murillo is reportedly considered to be the architect of the so-called "historical truth" version of events that they reported in 2015 under the government of former president Enrique Pena Nieto. It was widely rejected by the public, especially the relatives.

The investigation into the disappearance of 43 Ayotzinapa students was reopened when President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador won the presidency in 2018.

Murillo, who led the investigation into the disappearance of the 43 students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers' College, was arrested outside his residence on Friday. He was a former attorney general from 2012 to 2015.

Authorities said Murillo will be brought to a Mexico City jail. The attorney general's office noted that 83 more arrest orders in relation to the case were released for soldiers, police, Guerrero officials, and gang members.

Murillo's arrest came after Alejandro Encinas, a top human rights official in Mexico, announced that the students' disappearance was a "state crime," adding that the military had at least partial responsibility either directly or through negligence.

According to Reuters, Mexico is currently trying to extradite one of the former officials who served under Murillo from Israel. The official was also accused of manipulating the probe.

43 Ayotzinapa Students' Disappearance in Mexico

The Ayotzinapa students were among the more than 100,000 people who have gone missing or considered disappeared across Mexico.

Maureen Meyer, the vice president of programs at the Washington Office on Latin America, said it was important that the government put emphasis on the case of the missing 43 students since it was complicated.

Meyer noted that it was a mass disappearance involving the partnership of security forces from all levels of government and criminal organizations, The New York Times reported. Only three students' remains were identified, and there was no identification that any of the other students were still alive.

Alejandro Encinas, the Mexican deputy interior minister responsible for human rights, said all the testimonies and evidence proved that the students were "cunningly killed and disappeared."

The human rights official noted that there were 33 former officials linked to the case, with arrest warrants issued to them. However, he did not detail the identity of these officials since the investigation was ongoing.

Probe of the Missing Ayotzinapa Students in Mexico

On the night they disappeared in 2014, the Ayotzinapa students were on their way to a protest in Mexico City. They commandeered several buses to get there.

But soon after taking the buses in Iguala town in Guerrero State, the students were intercepted by municipal police officers and other armed men, who shot some of them and took away others after forcing them off the vehicles. Little is known about what happened after that incident.

A government truth commission concluded in its report that the students' disappearance after they were ambushed was "a state-sponsored crime" involving federal and state authorities.

The commission's final report said the Mexican military and federal police were aware of the students' movements from the time they left their campus to their arrival in Iguala, The Guardian reported.

The report was based on over 41,000 documents that include records of phone calls and text messages and videos provided by the Mexican military, marines, and the National Guard. The 50 videos reportedly showed the torture of detainees in the case.

This article is owned by Latin Post.

Written by: Mary Webber

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