Stonewalled by Government in Disappearance of 43 Students, Panel Ends Mexico Probe Azam Ahmed and Paulina Villegas - The New York Times
go to original April 25, 2016

Independent investigators looking into the disappearance of 43 Mexican students are ending their probe out of frustration. Natasha Ghoneim reports from Guerrero (Al Jazeera English)

An international panel of experts that arrived in Mexico to investigate the disappearance of 43 students said it cannot solve the case because of a sustained campaign of harassment, stonewalling and intimidation against it.

The international investigators said their job is far from complete. But they will nonetheless leave Mexico in the coming days - pushed out, they say, by a government many suspect of covering up what happened on the night in September 2014 when the college students were abducted by the police and never seen or heard from again.

The investigators said they have endured carefully orchestrated attacks in the Mexican media, a refusal by the government to turn over documents or grant interviews with essential figures, and even a retaliatory criminal investigation into one of the officials who appointed them.

By contrast, the Mexican government said it has fully cooperated with the experts, completing the vast majority of their information requests, while it is still processing the rest.

For some, the conclusion is that the government does not want the experts to solve the case.

...The pressure on the investigators - described by some of the five panel members - undermines promises by the Mexican government to cooperate fully and uncover what happened to the students, one of the worst human-rights abuses in the country's recent memory.

Read the rest at NWAOnline.com

Related: Highlights of Experts’ Report on Mexican Missing Students (Associated Press)

Related: After 43 Went Missing, 31 Suspects Accuse Mexico of Torture (Bloomberg)

Related: Torture Claims Could Scupper Ayotzinapa Convictions (Associated Press)

Related: Int'l Investigators Empty-Handed After Mexico Mass Disappearance Inquiry (VOA News)

Related: Mexico Gov't Blocks All Possibility of Truth in Ayotzinapa Case (teleSUR)

Related: Report Criticises Mexico Over Disappearance of 43 Students (FT.com)

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