Felipe Flores, the former police chief of Iguala, where 43 students disappeared in 2014, has been detained after two years on the run, Mexican officials announce.
He was arrested in Iguala, in the southern state of Guerrero, where the incident happened.
Mexican government says the students were arrested by police before being handed over to a drugs cartel who killed them and incinerated their bodies.
Families and independent experts contest this claim.
The panel of experts, working for the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, said the account that the students had been burnt beyond identification at a rubbish dump was physically impossible.
Felipe Flores was police chief of Iguala when the incident took place on September 26, 2014, and his arrest may offer new clues as to what exactly happened then.
Attorney General Arely Gomez welcomed Felipe Flores’ capture, tweeting that it would allow investigators to get “a fundamental statement to clear up the events”.
The case has tainted Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto’s image.
Guerrero gang leader Gildardo Lopez Astudillo, a key figure in the disappearance of 43 Mexican students last year in the town of Iguala, has been arrested.
The Mexican government says Gildardo Lopez Astudillo, known as “El Gil” is a leader of the Guerreros Unidos drug cartel.
It alleges Gildardo Lopez Astudillo, 36, gave the orders to abduct and kill the students.
There have so far been 111 arrests over the 2014 disappearances.
The Mexican attorney-general’s office says its investigations show the Guerreros Unidos gang were handed the students by corrupt police in Iguala.
The office has said because Guerreros Unidos thought the students were members of a rival gang, they murdered them and then disposed of the bodies by burning them at a rubbish dump outside the city.
Official accounts contrast with a report issued by an international group of experts appointed by the Inter-American Human Rights Commission (IAHRC).
Their report earlier this month alleges that the Mexican authority’s investigations were deeply flawed, and included the disappearance of key evidence.
According to the experts, who visited the site where the Mexican authorities say the bodies were burnt, a fire fierce enough to incinerate the 43 students would have lasted over 60 hours and would have required tons of wood or rubber which would have burnt down the surrounding vegetation.
No fire was reported in the area at the time of the disappearance.
Earlier this week Austrian forensic experts announced they had identified the remains of a second victim found at the rubbish dump where the students’ bodies were allegedly burnt.
The relatives of the 43 students have demanded that the government investigates the possible involvement of high-ranking members of the military in the disappearances.
The apparent massacre of poor, rural students has posed problems for President Enrique Pena Nieto who took office in 2012 promising to stamp out drug-related violence.
Enrique Pena Nieto has been criticized for his handling of the case and accused of trying to wrap it up without a comprehensive investigation.
Correspondents say by charging “El Gil” with the disappearance of the students, the President would enable a swift end to the investigation.
International experts have disputed the government’s accounts of what happened and have said its investigation was deeply flawed.
Further ten municipal police officers have been arrested by Mexican authorities investigating the disappearance of 43 student teachers in Guerrero state.
Around 90 people in total, including 58 police officer, have been detained so far.
The students disappeared in September 2014 after clashes with police in the city of Iguala.
National prosecutors say police handed them to criminal gangs who murdered them and burnt their bodies.
Parents of the students dispute this, arguing the authorities are hiding what happened to them.
Photo EPA
The remains of only one student, Alexander Mora, have been identified so far.
They were found near a rubbish dump where criminal gang members say the students were taken to be shot and their bodies burnt.
Members of the gang said they killed the 43 and burned their bodies after they were told the students belonged to a rival gang.
The relatives of the other 42 missing students say they will not give up hope of finding them alive until forensic evidence proves they are dead.
The slow pace of the initial investigation into their disappearance and the collusion it has highlighted between local authorities and drug gangs has led to mass protests across Mexico.
Families of 43 missing Mexican students have led mass protests in Mexico City demanding action from the government to find them.
The families from Guerrero State arrived in Mexico City after touring the country.
The students, all trainee teachers, went missing after attending a protest in Iguala, Guerrero State.
Many remain unconvinced by the official explanation that the students were murdered by a drugs gang.
Forensic tests are being carried out on bodies found in mass graves in the state.
The mayor of Iguala Jose Luis Abarca has been arrested facing accusations that he ordered police to confront the students on the day of their disappearance on September 26.
In the past decade, more than 100,000 people have been killed and 27,000 have disappeared in Mexico in the last decade.
Thousands of people took part in three protest marches in the capital, which started at 17:00 local time.
Many thousands converged on Mexico City’s main square, or Zocalo.
Several hundred protesters gathered near the presidential palace, where police tried to push them back using water cannon.
The protest itself was peaceful with only small groups of protesters throwing bottles and fireworks at the presidential palace.
In violence near Mexico City’s international airport before the marches began, some 200 hooded protesters threw rocks and petrol bombs at police officers who had been trying to disperse them.
Demonstrators have also called for a nationwide strike. Protests also took place in other parts of Mexico and abroad.
The abduction has galvanized opposition to rampant political corruption and violence.
President Enrique Pena Nieto has accused some of the protesters of trying to “destabilize” the state.
Analysts say the issue is the biggest challenge Enrique Pena Nieto has faced in his two years of office.
Mexico’s governing PRI party’s offices in south-western Guerrero state have been set on fire by protesters to vent their anger at the official handling of the case of 43 missing students.
Their disappearance more than six weeks ago from the town of Iguala has sparked a series of sometimes violent protests.
Officials say local gang members have confessed to killing the students and burning their bodies.
However, remains found nearby have not yet been matched to the missing.
About 1,000 people marched in the Guerrero state capital, Chilpancingo, before unrest broke out.
A group of protesters fought running battles with police, throwing stones and petrol bombs.
The disappearance of 43 students six weeks ago from the town of Iguala has sparked a series of violent protests
Officials said three police officers and two journalists were injured in the clashes.
The disappearance of the 43 trainee teachers and the links it has revealed between the local authorities and a gang calling itself Guerreros Unidos (United Warriors) have triggered mass protests.
Investigators said that municipal police officers confessed to seizing the students, who had been protesting in Iguala on September 26, and later handing them over to the gang.
Iguala Mayor Jose Luis Abarca is under arrest on suspicion of ordering police to intercept the students. Iguala’s police chief is still on the run.
Residents say they suspect links between the gang and officials reach higher levels than that of the local town council.
Relatives of the missing are also angry about the way the search for the students has been conducted.
The search uncovered a series of mass graves in the hills surrounding Iguala.
Tests carried out by the Guerrero state authorities suggested the bodies they contained were not those of the students.
Mexico’s Attorney-General Jesus Murillo Karam later said the initial tests may have been flawed.
A group of international forensic scientists acting for the families has also been examining the remains. On November 11 they released their first statement.
They said that they had so far been able to determine that 24 of the 30 bodies found in the six mass graves in Pueblo Viejo near Iguala were not those of the students.
It is not clear who they may belong to or how long ago they may have been buried there.
Test on the remaining six bodies found in Pueblo Viejo continue and results on those are expected soon, they said.
The team, made up of scientists from Argentina, Colombia, France, Mexico, Uruguay and the US, said it was also testing nine bodies found in burial pits in La Parota, also near Iguala.
Furthermore, charred remains found at a landfill site near the town of Cocula will be sent to a specialized laboratory in Austria for testing.
The landfill site is where, according to testimony by gang members given to prosecutors, the Guerreros Unidos killed and burned the students.
Mexico’s Attorney General Jesus Murillo has said that suspected gang members have confessed to killing 43 students missing for six weeks.
Jesus Murillo said three alleged gang members claimed the students were handed over to them by police.
They said some were already asphyxiated and they shot the others dead, before setting fire to all the bodies.
A total of 43 students went missing after clashing with police on September 26 in the town of Iguala.
The suspects from the Guerreros Unidos drug gang were recently arrested in connection with the disappearances.
Relatives of the missing said they had been told that six bags of unidentified human remains had been found along a river near where the students vanished.
Jesus Murillo warned that it would be difficult to identify the charred remains and that authorities would continue to consider the students as missing until DNA tests confirmed the identities.
Previous searches have uncovered mass graves in the area, but initial tests suggested they did not contain the remains of the students.
Jesus Murillo showed videotaped confessions by the suspects who said they had loaded the students into dumper trucks and taken them to a landfill site in Cocula, a city near Iguala.
About 15 of the students were already dead when they arrived and the rest were shot, according to the suspects.
Jesus Murillo said the bodies were then burned with petrol, tires, firewood and plastic in an inferno that lasted for 14 hours.
A total of 43 students went missing after clashing with police on September 26 in the town of Iguala
“The fire lasted from midnight to 2PM the next day. The criminals could not handle the bodies (for three hours) due to the heat,” he said.
He said that the suspects then crushed the remains, stuffed them into bags and tossed them in a river.
Jesus Murillo showed videos of investigators combing through small pieces of burned remains that were found in black plastic bags.
The suspects said they were not sure how many students they had taken but one said there were more than 40, Jesus Murillo added.
“The high level of degradation caused by the fire in the remains we found make it very difficult to extract the DNA that will allow an identification,” he added.
However, relatives of the missing remained skeptical. The families have been highly critical of the investigation into the students’ disappearance.
The case has shocked Mexico. Thousands have staged protests over what they say is collusion between officials and organized crime, along with government inaction.
President Enrique Pena Nieto has faced widespread criticism and on November 7 he vowed to hunt down all those responsible for the “horrible crime”.
The students from a teacher training college in Ayotzinapa, in Guerrero state, had travelled to nearby Iguala to protest against what they said were discriminatory hiring practices, and to collect funds for their college.
They went missing after clashes with the police.
Six people were also killed after police opened fire and witnesses described seeing the students being bundled into police cars.
More than 70 people have been arrested in connection with the disappearances, including the Mayor of Iguala, Jose Luis Abarca, and his wife, Maria de los Angeles Pineda, who were detained in Mexico City on November 4.
Mexican officials accused Jose Luis Abarca of ordering police to confront the students to prevent them from disrupting a public speech given by Maria de los Angeles Pineda.
The fugitive mayor of the Mexican town of Iguala, where 43 students went missing in September, has been arrested, officials announce.
Jose Luis Abarca was detained by federal police officers in the capital, Mexico City, a police spokesman said.
Mexican officials have accused Jose Luis Abarca of ordering police to confront the students on the day of their disappearance on September 26.
Eyewitnesses described seeing them being bundled into police cars.
Federal police spokesman Jose Ramon Salinas confirmed the arrest of Jose Luis Abarca and his wife Maria de los Angeles Pineda on Twitter.
Mexican officials had issued an arrest warrant for Jose Luis Abarca and Maria de los Angeles Pineda after Iguala police officers said they had received an order from the mayor to intercept the students.
The officers said they had been told to stop the students from interrupting a speech given by Maria de los Angeles Pineda in Iguala on that day.
The students, from a nearby teacher training college, had travelled to Iguala to raise funds and protest.
They have not been seen since. A search has uncovered a series of mass graves in the area, but initial tests suggested they were not those of the students.
Iguala Mayor Jose Luis Abarca and his wife Maria de los Angeles Pineda were detained by federal police officers in Mexico City
Since then, more bodies have been uncovered and officials have cast doubt on the accuracy of the initial tests.
More forensic tests are currently being carried out.
Jose Luis Abarca and Maria de los Angeles Pineda were arrested in a flat they had rented in Mexico City, media reports said.
They did not resist the arrest.
They have been taken for questioning. Officials hope they will be able to shed light on the whereabouts of the students.
The events of September 26 have shocked Mexicans and have led to mass protests demanding that the authorities do more to find the missing students.
The 43 were part of a larger group which had gone to Iguala to protest against what they said were discriminatory hiring practices.
The students all attended a teacher training college in Ayotzinapa with a history of left-wing activism, and their presence in Iguala raised alarm bells with the local authorities.
When the students boarded busses to return to their college, they were stopped by police – allegedly on the orders of Mayor Jose Luis Abarca.
The officers opened fire and killed three students and three people in nearby vehicles.
They stopped one busload of students trying to flee and took them to a local police station.
According to police officers detained as part of the investigation, they then handed the students over to a local drugs gang.
The gang’s leader, who has also been arrested, says he ordered the students be “made to disappear”, after having been told they belonged to a rival gang.
However, he did not specify further what happened to them.
The gang leader also accused Maria de los Angeles Pineda of being “the main operator of criminal activities in Iguala”.
The relatives of the missing students said on November 3 that “no progress” had been made in the search for the 43 and expressed their anger over the slow pace of the investigation.
The governor of the state of Guerrero, where Iguala is located, resigned last month over the disappearances.
Authorities searching for 43 Mexican students who disappeared after clashing with police in Iguala last month are investigating a suspected mass grave.
Mexico’s attorney general said the testimony of two arrested members of a drug gang had led them to the site.
He said police officers had confessed to handing the students over to the drugs gang in southern Guerrero state.
The disappearance has shocked Mexico and has sparked nationwide demonstrations.
Earlier this month, another mass grave was found, but DNA tests suggest the bodies were not those of the students.
So far, 56 people have been arrested in connection with the disappearance, among them police officers, local officials and alleged members of the drugs gang. The state governor has also resigned over the case.
The students’ disappearance has shocked Mexico and has sparked nationwide demonstrations
Arrest warrants have been issued for the mayor of the town of Iguala, where the abductions took place, his wife and the police chief, all of whom are on the run from the authorities.
The mayor, Jose Luis Abarca, allegedly ordered police to intercept the students to prevent them from interrupting a speech his wife was giving in Iguala.
Eyewitnesses say they saw the students being bundled into police cars after the police shot at buses carrying the students, killing three of them and three other people in nearby vehicles.
The latest grave site is in the town of Cocula, about10 miles from where the students last were seen.
Attorney general Jesus Murillo Karam said that two of the four suspects arrested on October 27 may have provided some valuable information
He said that they had admitted to “having received a large group of people” on the night of September 26, when the 43 students were last seen.
“We have the people who carried out the abduction of these individuals,” Jesus Murillo Karam told reporters.
He said the other two suspects detained on October 27 apparently worked as lookouts for the gang. The suspects have not so far been identified.
The four men arrested are all believed to be members of the group behind the abductions, called Guerreros Unidos (United Warriors).
Mexican authorities say that some bodies found in shallow graves near the town of Iguala are not those of students missing after clashes with police.
The 43 students were last seen being pushed into police vans after a protest in Guerrero state on September 26.
“I can say that some of the bodies, according to the work of forensics experts, do not correspond to the youths,” said Governor Angel Aguirre.
Prosecutors believe police turned over the students to a drug gang.
The gang was linked to the family of Iguala’s Mayor Jose Luis Abarca Velazquez.
He, his wife and his head of security went on leave after the clashes and have not reappeared.
A formal search has been launched for them.
The 43 students were last seen being pushed into police vans after a protest in Guerrero state on September 26
Angel Aguirre has promised new developments in the investigation over the next few days.
“I have big hopes of finding our young students alive. That is why we have now entered a new phase in the search for them,” he said.
The clandestine graves were located in the outskirts of Iguala following an anonymous tip off.
Twenty-eight burnt bodies were retrieved from the pits. Forensic experts are still working to identify all of them, said Angel Aguirre.
The students all attended a local teacher training college with a history of left-wing activism.
Six students were killed in two separate shooting incidents during the protests in Iguala, which lies some 120 miles south of the capital, Mexico City.
However, it is not clear whether they were targeted for their political beliefs.
Some think that they may have angered a local drug gang called Guerreros Unidos by refusing to pay extortion money.
Thousands of people have taken to the streets across Mexico to demand government action to locate the students.
President Enrique Pena Nieto went on national television to promise to identify and punish those responsible for the disappearance.
Multiple protests are being held in cities across Mexico against the disappearance of students in the southern town of Iguala on September 26.
The students had clashed with police during a demonstration and were last seen being bundled into police cars.
Hundreds of local vigilantes have joined the search, saying they would conduct a house-by-house search.
Meanwhile forensic tests are under way on dozens of bodies found in shallow graves near the town last week.
It is feared the bodies could be those of the students.
In Mexico City, family members led a procession, carrying photographs of the disappeared.
Demonstrations also took place in many cities, including Oaxaca, Veracruz, Morelia, and Guerrero.
Forty three missing students who vanished last month after clashing with police in the town of Iguala
A silent march was staged by the EZLN – better known as the Zapatistas indigenous rebel group – in the southern city of San Cristobal de las Casas.
The disappearance and the circumstances surrounding it have caused shock in Mexico.
The students, from a teacher college in Ayotzinapa in Guerrero State, had travelled to nearby Iguala to protest against what they perceived as discriminatory hiring practices for teachers.
After a day of protests, they wanted to make their way back to their college. Accounts of what happened next differ.
Members of the student union say they boarded three local buses, but the police says the students seized the buses.
In the hours that followed, six people were killed when armed men opened fire on the three buses and that of a local football team which they presumably mistook for one carrying students.
Three students, a footballer, the driver of one of the buses and a woman in a taxi were shot dead. Many more were injured.
Municipal police gave chase to the students, and are believed to have fired at them.
Twenty-two officers have been detained in connection with the shooting.
A student who survived the attack said he had seen police taking away his fellow students.
“We blame the state for the forced disappearance of our fellow students,” Omar Garcia told reporters in Mexico City.
Following the incident on the night of September 26, 57 students were reported missing. On September 30 it was announced that 13 of them had returned home.
One name was found to have appeared in the list of the missing twice, leaving 43 students unaccounted for.
On October 4, prosecutors announced they had found six shallow graves containing the remains of at least 28 people.
The bodies are so badly burnt they have not yet not been identified. Forensic experts said it could take days or even weeks to carry out DNA tests.
The reasons why police should have opened fire on the students and what may lie behind their disappearance remain unclear.
A number of different theories have been put forward.
The students all went to a local teacher training college with a history of left-wing activism, but it is not clear whether they were targeted for their political beliefs.
Some think that they may have angered a local drug gang called Guerreros Unidos by refusing to pay extortion money.
Others believe there may be a link between the students’ disappearance and a speech given by the wife of Iguala’s mayor on the day of the clashes.
Maria de los Angeles Pineda Villa was speaking to local dignitaries when the students were protesting in Iguala and some believe they may have been targeted because it was feared they could disrupt the event.
Police are searching for her husband, mayor Jose Luis Abarca Velazquez.
[youtube tNbcHdreL-o 650]
This website has updated its privacy policy in compliance with EU GDPR 2016/679. Please read this to review the updates about which personal data we collect on our site. By continuing to use this site, you are agreeing to our updated policy. AcceptRejectRead More
Privacy & Cookies Policy
Privacy Overview
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
