Former Mexican prosecutor Jesús Murillo has been arrested in the case of the disappearance of 43 Mexican students in 2014. He was arrested Friday night at his home in Mexico City, a day after a truth commission set up specifically for the disappearance released a detailed report, so report Mexican media. As a former prosecutor, Murillo is said to have obstructed the investigation into the disappearance – which the committee calls a ‘state crime’.
Murillo has been arrested on charges of, among other things, ‘forced disappearance’. Within hours of Murillo’s arrest, the Mexican prosecutor’s office released another 64 arrest warrants – for military personnel, police officers and officials – in connection with the disappearance case, AFP news agency reported on Saturday.
Also read: The disappearance of 43 Mexican students was a ‘state crime’
kidnapped by police
In September 2014, 43 students from a teacher training college disappeared in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero on their way to Mexico City. Only three bodies have been found to date. It has never become clear what exactly happened. The students may have been kidnapped by local police officers, who mistook them for gang members. The scandal is said to have been covered up by the government of former Mexican leader Enrique Peña Nieto.
Under President Nieto, Murillo oversaw the official investigation into the disappearance at the time, which has later been widely criticized for being corrupt. For example, information was withheld and witnesses were allegedly tortured. When current president Andrés Manuel López Obrador took office in 2018, he immediately set up a new commission that has now re-examined the disappearance.