The president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, assured this Monday that there will be no impunity for the people who participated in the disappearance of the 43 students from Ayotzinapa and asserted that “they are being judged” after the arrest of former attorney Jesús Murillo Karam.
“We are facing an unprecedented situation because it was thought that those who committed crimes in the name of the State enjoyed impunity and that is over, now the State is no longer the main violator of human rights,” said the president during his morning press conference from the National Palace.
López Obrador assured that there is a “great co-responsibility” of many people in the disappearance of the students, which occurred in the southern state of Guerrero on September 26, 2014, but said that those who participated directly “are the ones who are being judged, The investigation is not closed.”
Asked whether former President Enrique Peña Nieto (2012-2018) should be arrested, the president indicated that it will be the Attorney General’s Office (FGR) or the judges who will determine if there are others involved.
“They will decide in absolute freedom, the same if in the statements of those involved, alleged perpetrators, new versions appear more information, all that will be taken into account by the judges,” he said.
Likewise, he denied that the arrest warrants have been slow in being presented, as he assured that a “thorough investigation” was carried out and that he acted “with great professionalism”, thus referring to the report presented on Thursday by the Commission for Truth and Access to Information. Justice, which concluded that the act was a “state crime”.
“There were many national and foreign experts, and a thorough investigation was carried out, and they, without interference from any public official, nor from the president, prepared the report, and they, without interference from anyone, nor from the president, made the list of those who they considered responsible, both for the disappearance of the young people, and for the concealment of the facts,” he asserted.
The president made these statements questioning the former head of the former Attorney General’s Office (PGR) Murillo Karam, arrested on Friday accused of the crimes of forced disappearance, torture and against the administration of justice, in the Ayotzinapa case.
López Obrador indicated that beyond the evidence presented, the former official acknowledged being responsible for the investigation that led to the “historical truth.”
“In the case of prosecutor Murillo Karam, his arrest regardless of the statements of those involved, he blames himself, according to the report and the investigation by the prosecution,” said López Obrador.
On September 26, 2014, students from the Ayotzinapa rural teacher’s school disappeared on their way to Mexico City to participate in a demonstration for October 2, when there was a massacre of students in the plaza of the three cultures, in Tlatelolco, in the capital of Mexico.
According to the controversial first version presented by the government of Enrique Peña Nieto, the so-called “historical truth”, corrupt police officers detained the students and handed them over to the Guerreros Unidos cartel, which murdered and incinerated them in the Cocula garbage dump and dumped their remains in the San Juan River.
However, the last report of the Commission for Truth and Access to Justice concluded in a preliminary way, last Thursday, that the disappearance of the 43 Mexican students from Ayotzinapa was a “state crime” in which authorities of the all levels, including criminal groups, and there is no indication that they are alive.