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A panel of worldwide specialists investigating the 2014 abduction of 43 college students in southern Mexico mentioned on Tuesday that it was ending its inquiry after being repeatedly lied to and misled by the Mexican armed forces about their position within the crime.
Members of the Mexican navy misrepresented their whereabouts throughout the crime, denied entry to key paperwork and withheld particulars about their involvement within the disappearance and its subsequent cover-up, the specialists mentioned in a report launched on Tuesday, their sixth and remaining evaluation of a infamous occasion that is still shrouded in thriller.
“It hurts to see how a case that might have been solved within the first few weeks ended up entangled in lies, falsehoods and diversions of the investigation,” the report mentioned.
In a information convention in Mexico Metropolis on Tuesday, the panel members — appointed by the Inter-American Fee on Human Rights in 2014 — cited their frustration on the armed forces’ unwillingness to cooperate.
“It’s all lies, one after one other,” Carlos Beristain, a Spanish physician and panel member, advised The New York Occasions on Monday night time. “We’re not going to remain if we don’t have an opportunity to get solutions,” he added.
The panel arrived in Mexico in 2015 and its work was key to discrediting an earlier model of occasions deemed fabricated by the administration of former President Enrique Peña Nieto, generally known as “the historic reality,” which blamed solely native police officers and arranged crime for the disappearance.
Extra not too long ago, solely two members of the panel remained on the committee and its mandate had expired.
The unbiased panel’s newest findings embrace a brand new technical evaluation of cellphone information and paperwork that positioned a number of members of the navy at places related to the assault whereas it was underway, in locations and instances that they had by no means talked about of their testimonies.
What they had been doing precisely is unclear. “What we do know is that the story advised is just not true,” mentioned Dr. Beristain.
The technical evaluation revealed a continuing circulation of communications that reached the highest ranges of the navy within the area. Mexican troopers not solely knew about however most certainly witnessed the shootings, the detentions and the violence “second by second,” Ángela Buitrago, a Colombian lawyer and one other panel investigator, mentioned throughout the information convention.
“What all of the technical data exhibits is the lie in most of the statements” supplied by the navy, added Dr. Beristain. “They are saying they weren’t in locations the place they had been.”
Earlier committee reviews mentioned that the military had real-time data in regards to the assault, didn’t share that data with the authorities after which intentionally obstructed the investigation.
The investigators additionally obtained a confidential doc from the navy indicating that two folks had died whereas detained by the marines. {A photograph} of the our bodies confirmed the boys had their fingers tied with a fabric “just like these seen in movies of arrests made by the navy,” the report mentioned.
In 2018, the United Nations Human Rights Workplace reported that one other individual tied to the crime had died whereas within the marines’ custody on account of being tortured.
The 43 college students disappeared within the rural state of Guerrero in September 2014, after hijacking a number of buses to attend a march in Mexico Metropolis — a observe principally tolerated on the time.
That night time was completely different.
Native law enforcement officials and different gunmen opened fireplace on the scholars, and by dawn, six folks had been killed and dozens of others wounded. The scholars had been by no means seen once more. The stays of solely three our bodies have been recognized.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador of Mexico vowed to unravel the case and produce closure to the households — a pledge he campaigned on in 2018. However regardless of the latest arrest of a common and 15 troopers in connection to the disappearance, the federal government has but to safe a single conviction.
On Tuesday morning, Mr. López Obrador mentioned he had met with the unbiased specialists the day earlier than and thanked them for his or her work. “We’ll proceed with the investigation,” the president mentioned. “I’ve the dedication to get to know the entire reality.”
The newest report discovered that, in October 2014, the marines illegally searched a river the place the Mexican authorities had claimed to have discovered a bag with a bone fragment from one of many disappeared college students. However, in response to the report, the marines by no means disclosed that that they had situated the bag a day earlier. That they had additionally discovered no less than 9 others; it’s unclear what occurred to them.
“There are findings that had been by no means documented, there have been baggage that had been by no means reported,” the report mentioned.
The committee’s remaining report “is a foot within the door to maintain the door from closing,” mentioned Dr. Beristain, including that the top of the investigation doesn’t imply the case is solved.
“There are lots of issues left to do,” he mentioned.
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