• Jesus Murillo Karam will stand trial on charges of forced disappearance, torture, and obstructing justice.
• He is considered the architect of the 2015 “historical truth” version of events.
• Arrest warrants were obtained for over 80 additional suspects, including police officers and military personnel.

A Mexican judge ordered a former attorney general to stand trial in the 2014 disappearance of 43 students.

After a court session in the Mexican capital, the Federal Judiciary Council announced that Jesus Murillo Karam would be tried on charges of forced disappearance, torture, and obstructing justice.

He is considered the architect of the 2015 “historical truth” version of events, which was largely rejected by relatives.

Only three pupils from the Ayotzinapa teachers’ college in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero have been recognised so far.

Former PRI heavyweight Murillo Karam is the most senior official charged in the case, which sparked international outrage.

On Friday, he was arrested at his residence in an upscale section of Mexico City and remanded in detention.

President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador stated on Wednesday that everyone involved in a cover-up, including the one who “issued the order,” must be held accountable.

Prosecutors reported that arrest warrants were obtained last week for over 80 additional suspects, including military personnel, police officers, and cartel members.

The case is one of the gravest violations of human rights in Mexico, where a spiral of drug-related violence has resulted in the disappearance of over 100,000 people.

Unsolved crime

Before their disappearance, the students had commandeered buses to drive to a demonstration in Mexico City.

Investigators assert they were apprehended by crooked police and handed over to the Guerreros Unidos drug cartel, which mistaken them for members of a rival gang; nevertheless, the precise nature of their fate is contested.

According to the 2015 official investigation, cartel members murdered the students and burned their remains at a landfill.

Independent experts, the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, and the families all disputed these conclusions.

In March, Lopez Obrador stated that navy personnel were being investigated for allegedly tampering with evidence, including at the dump.

Thursday, a truth committee examining the atrocity labelled the incident a “state crime” involving multiple organisations.

It stated that military personnel carried “obvious responsibility,” either directly or through negligence, in contrast to the “historical reality,” which attributed no responsibility to military men.

As an opposition party, the PRI has attacked the detention of Murillo Karam as politically motivated.

Mexico has also frequently requested that Israel arrest Tomas Zeron, the fugitive former head of the Criminal Investigation Agency.

Zeron is suspected of using torture to obtain purported confessions from individuals, as well as enforced disappearance and embezzlement of public monies.

Also Read

Mexico claims another journalist, making it the 15th death this year

Fredid Román's program focused heavily on state-level politics. He is the 15th...