Mexico's government announced the arrest of General José Rodríguez Pérez, who has become the first high-ranking military officer to be detained in the case of the 43 students from Ayotzinapa, who disappeared in 2014. The so-called 'truth commission', created by the government of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador to carry out the investigation, concluded in August that "a State crime" had been committed. According to the commission, several members of the Guerreros Unidos criminal group and agents of various Mexican state institutions were allegedly involved in the massacre.
"Four arrest warrants have been issued against members of the Mexican Army," Mexico's Undersecretary of Public Security, Ricardo Mejia stated on Thursday. There are currently three people being detained, among them is the commander of the 27th Infantry Battalion who was in charge when the events occurred in Iguala in September 2014, said Mejía, referring to General Rodríguez Pérez.
The general is accused of ordering the execution of six of the 43 students. Rodriguez kept the six victims alive for only four days after the disappearance of the rest of the group.
The case of the Ayotzinapa students
On September 26, 2014, a group of students from the Ayotzinapa rural teachers' school in the state of Guerrero disappeared while on their way to Mexico City to participate in a demonstration for October 2. This day commemorates the Tlatelolco massacre of 1968. It was later learned that they had been massacred.
The relatives of the victims never agreed with the official version offered by former Mexican prosecutor Jesús Murillo Karam, who is charged with "forced disappearance, torture and crimes against the administration of justice." Karam led the first official investigation into the disappearances during the government of Enrique Peña Nieto. His conclusion was that corrupt police arrested the students, handed them over to the Guerreros Unidos Cartel, who in turn, murdered them and eventually incinerated them, before leaving them in a garbage dump in the town of Cocula. According to that version, the criminals would have thrown the remains in the San Juan River, confusing them with members of a rival gang. They only managed to identify the remains of three of the victims.
The subsequent official report published last August by the current government, estimated that the Mexican soldiers had part of the responsibility in the crime and that "their actions, omission or participation, allowed the disappearance and execution of the students," said the Undersecretary of Human Rights of the Mexican Government, Alejandro Encinas, in a press conference.
There are several defendants
Mexico's Attorney General's Office in August issued arrest warrants for 20 army officers, 44 police officers and five officials for their alleged involvement in the disappearance of the Ayotzinapa students. The agents are wanted for "organized crime, forced disappearance, torture, homicide and crimes against the administration of justice," said the Attorney General, which has not yet released the identities and rank of the accused. The arrest of 14 members of the Guerreros Unidos drug cartel has also been ordered.
