Mexico: 4 Different Police Forces Helped Disappear the 43 Ayotzinapa Students

América del Norte/México/Abril 2016/Autor:TeleSur / Fuente: http://readersupportednews.org

Resumen: Un total de cuatro policías, incluyendo un agente federal, han sido relacionados con la desaparición de los 43 estudiantes normalistas de Ayotzinapa, de acuerdo a las informaciones suministradas por la Comisión Nacional de Derechos Humanos de México.

A total of four different police forces, including federal agents, were involved in the enforced disappearance of the 43 Ayotzinapa students, according to new findings from Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission, opening new lines of investigation into the case while federal prosecutors continue to dodge responsibility for botching the 18 month-long investigation.

New witness testimonies have provided proof that local police departments not only in Iguala, Guerrero, where the students were last seen, but also Cocula and Huitzuco participated in the forced disappearance. Two agents of the federal police were also involved, according to the national human rights body, known as the CNDH.

Jose Larrieta Carrasco, a commission official investigating the case, said the authorities should now look into a “new route in the disappearance” of the students, reiterating a point the CNDH made last year that there could be a “second route.”

Independent investigators have repeatedly insisted that the government’s “historical truth” of the Ayotzinapa case is false. The official story claims that the students were kidnapped by police and handed over to the organized crime syndicate Guerreros Unidos, transported some 18 miles (almost 30 km) south of Iguala to be burned in the Cocula garbage dump, and that their remains were tossed into Cocula’s San Juan River.

Prosecutors have already charged municipal police officers in connection with the mass abduction in Iguala, in the violence-ridden state of Guerrero, on Sep. 26, 2014.

But the CNDH said it found an eyewitness who saw two federal agents near Iguala’s courthouse, where municipal officers had stopped a bus carrying students. The witness was not identified, but reportedly did not personally participate in the disappearance.

The witness also reported that a soldier traveling by motorcycle behind the buses transporting the students took photos of what happened.

CNDH Defends Attorney General

Despite the new evidence, the CNDH has continued to help shield the attorney general’s office from being held accountable for not leading a thorough investigation over the past year and a half to uncover these key details.

The CNDH reported that there have been obstacles hampering the attorney general’s investigation and that witnesses “in some sense covered up those likely responsible,” deflecting responsibility from prosecutors and onto witnesses.

Nevertheless, the implication of federal police agents in the disappearances is the first major development in the Ayotzinapa case to be seen in recent months. It also comes after a serious breakdown in the working relationship between independent and government investigators, who appear to be attempting to sideline foreign experts.

Families of the 43 students and the independent investigators involved in the case have long feared that the federal government has tried to burry the Ayotzinapa case once and for all.

Fuente de la noticia: http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/36345-4-different-police-forces-helped-disappear-the-43-ayotzinapa-students

Fuente de la imagen: http://readersupportednews.org/images/stories/article_imgs19/019676-ayotzinapa-protester-012316.jpg