The British Guardian newspaper revealed that the Mexican authorities had arrested a retired general and two members of the army;

The pretext of having links to the case of the disappearance of 43 students in the south of the country in 2014.

The newspaper quoted the authorities as saying that among the detainees was the former military officer who headed the army base in the city of Iguala, Guerrero state, in September 2014, when the students were kidnapped, and he was at the time a colonel, Jose Rodriguez Perez.

These arrests came after the government commission of inquiry - which re-investigated the case - issued a report that described the disappearance as a "state crime", noting that the authorities were closely monitoring the students since they left the campus until the moment they were kidnapped by the Iguala police that night.

According to Deputy Interior Minister Alejandro Encinas Rodriguez, who headed the investigation committee, it was confirmed that 6 of the missing students were alive in a warehouse before they were handed over to the commander of the Iguala military base, Colonel Rodriguez Perez, who is believed to have ordered their killing.

continuous puzzle

The Guardian said that several government and independent investigations failed to arrive at a unified account that reveals the mystery of the disappearance of the 43 students, and stated that the motives for the kidnapping are unclear, as the bodies of the victims were not found, although human remains were found identical to 3 of the missing students.

She added that it is possible that the local police stopped the buses carrying the students in Iguala, and handed them over to a drug gang.

Parents of students organized protest rallies demanding the disclosure of the fate of their missing children (Reuters)

The British newspaper stated that a major dispute remained between the government and the families of the missing students, regarding the extent to which the army knew the details of what happened, and the possible involvement of military leaders in the disappearance of the students.

Parents of the missing students have demanded for years that the Igual military base be searched, something that only happened in 2019 with the government truth commission.

Shortly after the truth commission was issued, the Mexican attorney general's office announced that 83 arrest warrants had been issued, 20 of them for members of the military.

protesting students

The case concerned a group of 17-21-year-old students from a teacher training school in Ayotzinapa, in the southern state of Iguala, who had gathered to demonstrate and raise funds to serve their foundation's well-known anti-government projects.

The local police attacked them, backed by elements of the united fighters gang (Gyros Onidos), and the attack resulted in the killing of 6 students, then the police took the rest of the students to an unknown destination with the help of the gang - as confirmed by eyewitnesses - and no news of them since that time.

The government's investigative committee said that the military bears part of the responsibility in this incident.

Based on this report, the country's former attorney general, Jesus Murillo Karam, was arrested on charges of "enforced disappearance, torture and misdemeanours against the administration of the judiciary", as he was the public prosecutor from December 2012 until February 2015, and was responsible for the first investigation into the case.