Serious Holes in Mexico's Official Account of the Missing Students Case Charlotte Alfred - The WorldPost
go to original August 6, 2015

Demonstrators and relatives of the 43 missing students of Ayotzinapa college march during a protest rally ten months after the students disappearance on July 26, 2015 in Mexico City. (Miguel Tovar/STFs)

Mexican authorities said in January they had established the “historical truth” of what happened to 43 students who disappeared in one night last September in the city of Iguala. A growing chorus of witnesses, family members, journalists and independent experts beg to differ.

According to the Mexican federal investigation’s account of events, the students from Ayotzinapa teachers school were abducted by corrupt local police in Iguala on Sept. 26, and slaughtered by members of Guerreros Unidos, a local drug gang. Mexico’s then-attorney general, Jesús Murillo Karam, said in January that all leads in the case had been exhausted, signaling that the bulk of the government’s investigation was over.

Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission recently listed 32 problems with the government’s investigation - including witnesses who were never questioned, key evidence left unexamined, and the failure to build basic profiles of the victims. The report bolsters the questions of many critics of the government’s case, which has become a rallying cry for those furious with the corruption, impunity and drug violence in Mexico. The families of the missing students refuse to accept their sons’ deaths until their remains are found.

Mexican criminal justice expert Layda Negrete said that by presenting such problematic evidence as truth, the authorities are reinforcing the lack of transparency and right to a fair trial in Mexico's deeply flawed justice system. Negrete pointed to one survey that found just 26 percent of Mexicans believe justice will be done in the case.

“On an individual level, I find it very sad. As a country, I think it’s dangerous not to have avenues to be heard, like the justice system," she told The WorldPost.

In a case riddled with complexity and confusion, The WorldPost lays out the Mexican government’s account of events and the serious holes that remain.

Read the rest at The WorldPost

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