Ex-prosecutor in Mexico in custody for missing students

Mexico on Saturday remanded a former attorney general in connection with a controversial investigation into the disappearance of 43 students in 2014 – one of the country’s worst human rights tragedies.

Jesus Murillo Karam’s “preventive detention” was imposed “to guarantee his appearance,” according to a court source, at a court hearing on Wednesday to decide whether he will face charges related to the case.

Murillo Karam, who was arrested Friday, is the longest-serving person to be arrested in connection with the case, which shocked the nation and drew international condemnation.

Arrest warrants were also issued for dozens of other suspects, including military personnel, police officers and cartel members, prosecutors said.

They face charges of involvement in organized crime, enforced disappearances, torture, murder and obstruction of justice, they said.

The apprentices had seized buses in the southern state of Guerrero to go to a demonstration in Mexico City before disappearing.

Investigators say they were arrested by corrupt police and handed over to the Guerreros Unidos drug cartel, who believed them to be members of a rival gang, but what exactly happened to them is hotly disputed.

According to the official report submitted in 2015, cartel members killed the students and cremated their remains at a dump.

These conclusions have been contradicted by independent experts and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, as well as families of the victims.

Murillo Karam is credited with being the architect of the so-called “historical truth” version of events presented in 2015 by then-President Enrique Pena Nieto’s government, which was widely rejected, including by relatives.

The former heavyweight of the once-dominant Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) has been arrested for the crimes of enforced disappearance, torture and perversion of justice, the Attorney General’s Office said.