Parents of missing Mexican students say govt lying

By Nancy Caouette

MEXICO CITY

The parents of missing Mexican students have said that government officials have lied in the official investigation and placed evidence at the scene of the crime.

At a news conference Monday, the relatives of the 43 teaching students from Ayotzinapa College who disappeared in September 2014 in Iguala, said they fully support a team of international experts.

They also asked the government to follow investigative leads presented by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) and allow at least three members of the team to stay in Mexico.

On Sunday, five international experts from the IACHR, who have been investigating the case, submitted its final report on case and denounced omissions and the use of torture in the government’s probe of the case.

The team showed a video that it said demonstrates members of the office of Mexico’s Attorney General went to a dump one day before authorities allegedly found human remains there belonging to one of the missing students.

The students were kidnapped by corrupt local police in Iguala before being turned over to members of the Guerrero Unidos, or United Warriors, drug cartel who killed the group and then burned their bodies in a dump in Cocula, a town located 21 kilometers (13 miles) from Iguala.

"[Government officials] sowed the evidence in the San Juan River, near in Cocula dump. We don’t have doubts about it anymore," said Mario Cesar González Contreras, a father of a missing student, during the news conference.

Deputy Attorney General Eber Betanzos has not explained the unregistered presence of members of the office team in Cocula.

"We will analyze the [video]," he said Monday, adding that the Attorney General’s office will then determine if the video "is conducive in the framework of the investigation".

A separate team of Argentine forensic experts have so far rejected conclusions drawn in the official investigation, urging authorities to "search in other parts" for the missing students.

The IACHR also criticized authorities for not utilizing recommendations made in the team’s preliminary report that was presented last September and said the government of Enrique Pena Nieto tried to tarnish the reputation of the group and to "obstruct" its probe of the case.

The U.S. State Department congratulated the IACHR for its investigation and urged Mexico to seriously analyze leads put forth by the group.

"We trust the Mexican authorities will carefully consider the report's recommendations, evaluate suggested actions to address the issue of forced disappearances, provide support to the victims' families, and continue their efforts to bring the perpetrators of this terrible crime to justice," a spokesman said in a statement.