Mexico agrees to re-launch investigation into students’ disappearance
Mexican authorities have agreed to reopen an investigation into the disappearance of 43 students in the state of Guerrero last year.
Eber Betanzos, the deputy attorney general of Mexico, said on Tuesday that Mexico City would carry out the probe in cooperation with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR).
Betanzos said that Mexican official would “completely” accept the recommendations by IACHR experts, adding, however, that the body would not be allowed to directly question witnesses.
The students went missing in the town of Iguala in September 2014, when gang-linked local police reportedly attacked their buses and handed them over to members of the Guerreros Unidos drug gang.
They are believed to have been slaughtered and burnt at a trash dump by the gang members, according to the government, whose account of the incident has been rejected as sloppy by the victims’ relatives and independent observers.
Referring to the planned new investigation, IACHR expert Angela Buitrago said it would be carried out “with a strategy based on lines laid out by the group, including the use of technology... and establishing a path of action agreed upon by the families.”
Despite Betanzos’ statement that the IACHR will not be permitted to question witnesses directly, Buitrago expressed hope that her group would be given permission to question the military forces who were in the area when the disappearances took place, because such interviews will be crucial to the investigation.
Mexican Defense Minister General Salvador Cienfuegos has so far refused to grant access to the troops to anyone except government prosecutors.
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