Mexican government's case on 43 missing students rejected

An independent report presented Sunday dismantles the Mexican government's investigation into last year's disappearance of 43 teachers' college students, starting with the assertion that the giant funeral pyre in which the attorney general said they were burned to ash beyond identification simply never happened.

While the government said the Sept. 26 attack was a case of mistaken identity, the report said the violent and coordinated reaction to the students, who were hijacking buses for transportation to a demonstration, may have had to do with them unknowingly interfering with a drug shipment on one of the buses. Iguala, the city in southern Guerrero state where that attacks took place, is known as a transport hub for heroin going to the United States, particularly Chicago, some of it by bus, the report said.

"The business that moves the city of Iguala could explain such an extreme and violent reaction and the character of the massive attack," the experts said in the report delivered to the government and the students' families during a public presentation.

"It was the state!" some members of the audience shouted.

The attack and disappearance of the 43 at the hands of officials became a pivotal moment in the administration of President Enrique Pena Nieto, which started fast out of the blocks three years ago with a series of key political and economic reforms. But the slow response to the case of the 43 and the implausibility of the government's version of the events sparked international outrage and eroded the credibility of Pena Nieto's government.

The report means that nearly a year after the disappearance, the fate of 42 of the students remains a mystery, given the errors, omissions and false conclusions outlined in more than 400 pages by the experts assembled by the Inter-American Human Rights Commission. The team interviewed witnesses and detainees and reviewed the government's evidence and conclusions. A charred bone fragment of only one of the 43 has been identified and it wasn't burned at the high temperature of an incineration, contrary to Mexican investigators' claims.

The report recommends that authorities rethink their assumptions and lines of investigation, as well as continue the search for the students and investigate the possible use of public or private ovens to cremate the bodies. It also recommends investigating the drug angle, who was coordinating the attacks and who were the high level people giving the orders — all unknowns nearly a year later.

In point after point, the international team of experts, including lawyers, former prosecutors and a medical doctor, says the government investigation was wrong about the nature of and the motive for the attacks. It is an indictment of Mexico's investigative procedures and conclusions, and cites key evidence that was manipulated or that disappeared.

Federal police and military were aware of the attacks and present at some of the crime scenes, according to the report. While their involvement is unclear, at the very least they failed to intervene to stop widespread shooting of unarmed civilians.

"This report provides an utterly damning indictment of Mexico's handling of the worst human rights atrocity in recent memory," Jose Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement Sunday. "Even with the world watching and with substantial resources at hand, the authorities proved unable or unwilling to conduct a serious investigation."

The Mexican government said it will now seek a new investigation into the students who disappeared.

"We will request a new investigation led by a group of forensic investigators of the highest prestige," Mexico's Attorney General Arely Gomez told a news conference in Mexico City, adding that the government will seek to extend the stay of the independent experts so they can keep investigating.

Wire services