Forensic Experts Again Reject Mexico's Claim That Criminals Burned 43 Missing Students David Agren - The Guardian
go to original February 10, 2016

For the second time in a year, an international group has rejected the Mexican government's findings in the case of 43 students who went missing in 2014. (Al Jazeera English)

Independent forensic experts have rejected the Mexican government’s investigation into the 2014 disappearance of 43 student teachers, concluding that there is no physical evidence to support the attorney general’s claim that the missing students’ bodies were incinerated at a rubbish dump.

Investigators from the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team (EAAF) combed through the dump near the town of Cocula in the state of Guerrero but found nothing to suggest a single fire was ignited the night of the students’ disappearance.

And while the remains of 19 bodies were found at the dump, there was no evidence to conclude they included the missing students, said the team’s report, released in Mexico City on Tuesday.

The findings further discredit the Mexican government’s handling of one of the most notorious crimes in Latin America’s recent history. A federal investigation concluded that the students from the Ayotzinapa training college were killed by criminals before their bodies were destroyed on a bonfire of tires that burned for 60 hours before their ashes were thrown into the nearby San Juan river.

The attorney general at the time, Jesús Murillo Karam, described the conclusion as “the historic truth” in an attempt close the case on a crime that had provoked mass protests across the country and sent President Enrique Peña Nieto’s popularity plummeting.

But the EAAF team concluded that the scientific evidence did not support the official version. “From the scientific point of view and the evidence collected and analysed … it is not possible that the suspects could have burned 43 students in that place,” the report said.

Read the rest at The Guardian

Related: Mystery as Remains of 19 People Found in Tip – But Not Any of 43 Students Who Vanished (Express)

Related: Mexico Missing Students: Knowns and Unknowns (BBC)

Related: Independent Experts Investigating Ayotzinapa Case Face 'Coordinated Defamation Campaign' (Mexico Voices)

We invite you to add your charity or supporting organizations' news stories and coming events to PVAngels so we can share them with the world. Do it now!