A long-awaited international report has published allegations of torture and misinformation related to the disappearance of 43 Mexican students in 2014, heaping greater pressure on president Enrique Peña Nieto after months of outrage over the scandal.
Mr Peña Nieto’s administration claims the students were abducted by corrupt local police, handed to a drug gang and burnt on a rubbish dump. The atrocity amounted to Mexico’s worst human rights violation for decades.
Torture
But the international panel of experts, which released its final report on Sunday, said at least 17 people were tortured to corroborate the administration's account - which the Mexican government has described as a "historic truth".
It also set out a number of seeming inconsistencies, including a text message from one student an hour after officials say the victims were killed and suggestions that evidence was planted.
The claims of physical abuse while in custody of the 17 alleged drug gang members and police detained in connection with the disappearance are backed up by Mexican medical examinations, the report says. The experts were appointed by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
Tarnish on international reputation
The scandal over the disappearance of the students, who attended the Ayotzinapa teacher training college in the state of Guerrero, has taken a toll on Mr Peña Nieto's standing. He has a 30 per cent approval rating, according to a poll this month, the lowest score of his three-and-a-half-year presidency.
"The first Ayotzinapa report exposed extreme negligence," Daniel Wilkinson, Americas division managing director at Human Rights Watch, told the Financial Times, referring to the experts' interim report last year that questioned official claims the students were burnt on the dump.
“We have never seen abuse and the mechanics of impunity and cover-up exposed so clearly and in such an authoritative, detailed fashion. This report is devastating for Mexico’s international reputation.”
As of yesterday morning, Mexico’s attorney-general’s office said it had not yet seen the report and could not comment, although the government promised a “clear and conclusive” response.
Events unclear
The Mexican government originally said the 43 students were burnt on the dump but officials later said that number may have been lower.
While the experts say the official version of events of September 26th-27th, 2014 is a sham, they have not found out what did happen. They say their probe was obstructed by the “fragmentation” of case files and a refusal to let them question soldiers present when the students disappeared. They have also criticised a smear campaign to discredit them.
The experts concluded the 17 cases detailed showed “significant indications of maltreatment and torture”. As well as referring to the text message sent an hour after one student’s supposed death, the report also highlighted photographs taken on October 28th, which showed one of the alleged gang members with an official at the river where, the next day, a bag containing bone fragments was found.
The Financial Times Limited