#ExMexican #Attorney #General #faces #trial #missing #students
A Mexican judge on Wednesday ordered a former attorney general to stand trial in the case of 43 students whose grim disappearance in 2014 traumatized the nation.
Jesus Murillo Karam will be tried on charges of enforced disappearance, torture and obstruction of justice, the Federal Judiciary Council said after a court hearing in Mexico City.
He is credited with being the architect of the so-called “historical truth” version of events – presented in 2015 by the government of then-President Enrique Pena Nieto – that was widely rejected, including by relatives.
Murillo Karam, a former heavyweight of the once-dominant Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), is the longest-serving figure to have been indicted in connection with the case that sparked international condemnation.
Arrest warrants have also been issued for dozens of other suspects, including military personnel, police officers and cartel members, in the past week, prosecutors 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 mistook them for members of a rival gang, but what exactly happened to them is disputed.
According to the official report submitted in 2015, cartel members killed the students and cremated their remains at a dump.
On Thursday, a truth commission investigating the atrocities branded the case a “state crime” involving agents from various institutions.
Contrary to “historical truth,” which ascribes no responsibility to members of the armed forces, the military bears at least some responsibility, direct or negligent.
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#ExMexican #Attorney #General #faces #trial #missing #students