Mexico's top court orders release of Ayotzinapa missing students case file
MEXICO CITY, June 25 (Reuters) - Mexico's Supreme Court on Wednesday ordered the attorney general's office to release a public version of its investigation file into the 2014 disappearance of 43 students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers College, one of the country's worst human rights atrocities.
The case has been marred by missteps and interference, with Mexico's former top prosecutor arrested in 2022 in relation to the case.
The court ruling, prompted by a request from a private citizen, requires the file to be made available on the prosecutor's website with confidential data redacted.
For more than a decade, the government has promised action in finding those responsible, with investigations publishing varying accounts of what happened to the students from the southern state of Guerrero.
In 2022, investigators acknowledged that local, state and federal officials had played a role in covering up their disappearance. International probes have ruled they were likely kidnapped and killed by organized crime members in cahoots with police.
The attorney general's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the ruling. The Supreme Court did not specify a deadline for compliance.
Victims' families have long pressed for justice, though no one has been convicted in connection to the case.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Telegraph
31 minutes ago
- Telegraph
John Hunt: I talk to my murdered family every day
BBC racing commentator John Hunt has said he talks to his murdered family every day. In an interview alongside his surviving daughter Amy, the pundit described how he still lives in the house where his wife and two daughters were killed by Kyle Clifford. The pair criticised the justice system for 'prioritising' the crossbow killer over the Hunt family by not making him attend his sentencing. Clifford murdered his former girlfriend Louise Hunt, 25, her mother Carol, 61, and her sister Hannah, 28, on July 9 2024. Speaking to the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire, Mr Hunt said: 'From the moment I wake up, I say good morning to each of them. 'Sometimes I say out loud to Hannah and Louise, 'Girls, sorry I can't be with you, I'm with your mum at the moment'. As I close my eyes at night, I chat to them as well. They're very close to me all the time.' Amy, the eldest of the three children, took aim at the justice system after the former soldier's absence from sentencing spared him from hearing the judge's damning remarks. 'It's consistently a system that prioritises the perpetrator. That's a traumatising thing for so many people,' she said. The judge described Clifford as a 'jealous man soaked in self pity, who holds women in utter contempt' and handed down three whole-life orders. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said it has apologised and has the 'utmost admiration for the Hunt family, who had the strength and courage to attend court every day and hear first-hand the devastating truth of what happened to Carol, Louise and Hannah'. A spokesman added: 'At the request of the judge during the first hearing of Kyle Clifford, we provided initial details of the prosecution's case. 'We apologised to the Hunt family for the level of detail outlined at that stage and continued to meet with them throughout the criminal justice process.' During the interview, denied there were any early signs of abuse in Clifford's relationship with Louise. 'At the point of Louise ending [the relationship], there was absolutely evidence that he had turned out not to be a nice person,' Amy said. 'But I want to put it very bluntly now. Did we have any indication that this man was capable of stabbing my mother, of tying Louise up, of raping Louise, of shooting Louise and shooting Hannah? Absolutely not.' At Cambridge Crown Court, the judge said: 'The evidence I have heard shows you to be a jealous man soaked in self-pity, a man who holds women in utter contempt. 'This is no occasion to subject family and friends of your victims to any delay or suspense. 'I therefore make clear at once that for each of these three murders, the sentence will be one of life imprisonment with a whole-life order. 'That means a sentence from which you will never be released.' Mr Hunt and Amy both delivered statements to the court in Clifford's absence. The BBC racing commentator addressed Clifford at Cambridge Crown Court, saying he could faintly hear the 'screams of hell', which said 'they're going to roll the red carpet out for you'. Amy also directed her words at the killer, telling the court: 'Kyle, plainly the Hunt family are human and you are not.' The pair hugged loved ones as the sentence was passed. Louise, Carol and Hannah, and was later convicted of raping Louise in a 'violent, sexual act of spite'.
Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
No-nonsense judge loses it at paedophile - and hands down tough jail sentence: 'Abhorrent'
A judge has unleashed on a man described as one of Queensland 's worst paedophiles, jailing him for life and barring him from parole for at least 20 years. On Friday the man, who cannot be identified in order to protect the identities of his victims, was found guilty by a jury of two counts each of indecent treatment of children under 12 and rape, one count of indecent treatment of children under 12 under care, and one count of maintaining an unlawful sexual relationship with a child. The man had moved in with a woman he met online and began grooming and sexually abusing her young daughter. The man had entered guilty pleas at the start of the trial to his less serious charges -four counts each of making child exploitation material, and indecent treatment of children under 16 under care, and one count of possession of child exploitation material. But during sentencing, Judge Michael Byrne described the guilty pleas as a 'cynical attempt to persuade a jury to the false argument that you had pleaded guilty to everything you had done to these children'. 'Your offending is fundamentally abhorrent,' the judge said, according to The Courier Mail. 'You have shown to remorse.' Crown prosecutor Ben Jackson described him as 'one of the worst sex offenders in the state of Queensland' and said the offending against what was effectively his stepdaughter was 'haunting'. 'He did have a level of sexual obsession of (the victim) which was extremely depraved in nature,' Mr Jackson told the Ipswich District Court. 'The offending itself... involved an extreme abuse of trust, and there was a level of cunning that he displayed. 'The utter depravity of the man was demonstrated by him showing the victim images of her own abuse that he had carried out. 'He also filmed it... He didn't care about her one bit. He was all about himself and his sexual needs, regardless of the price she had to pay for that.' The man was sentenced to life in prison, and he was one of the first offenders to be barred from parole for at least 20 years under recent law changes. His latest conviction comes after he was in and out of the courts for years for similar offences, including maintaining a sexual relationship with two children who were the daughters of a previous partner. His previous conviction for maintaining a sexual relationship with a child and rape meant he automatically faced a life sentence. With time already served, he will be eligible for parole in 14-and-a-half years.
Reuters
an hour ago
- Reuters
Amnesty says Cambodia is enabling brutal scam industry
BANGKOK, June 26 (Reuters) - Human rights group Amnesty International accused Cambodia's government on Thursday of "deliberately ignoring" abuses by cybercrime gangs who have trafficked people from across the world, including children, into slavery at brutal scam compounds. The London-based group said in a report that it had identified 53 scam centres and dozens more suspected sites across the country, including the Southeast Asian nation's capital, Phnom Penh. The prison-like compounds were ringed by high fences with razor wire, guarded by armed men and staffed by trafficking victims forced to defraud people across the globe, it said, with those inside subjected to punishments including shocks from electric batons, confinement in dark rooms, and beatings. Amnesty said its findings revealed a "pattern of state failures" that allowed the billion-dollar industry to flourish, including failures to investigate human rights abuses, identify and assist victims, and regulate security companies and tools of torture. 'Deceived, trafficked and enslaved, the survivors of these scamming compounds describe being trapped in a living nightmare – enlisted in criminal enterprises that are operating with the apparent consent of the Cambodian government,' said Amnesty International's Secretary General Agnes Callamard. Amnesty said the Cambodian government did not respond to its list of scamming compounds or suspicious locations, and that the National Committee to Combat Human Trafficking shared "vague data on interventions at compounds, none of which clarified whether the state has identified, investigated or prosecuted individuals for human rights abuses other than deprivation of liberty.' The Cambodian government did not immediately respond to a Reuters' request for comment about the report. Phnom Penh has said previously that it is tackling scam gangs and in January set up a taskforce headed by Prime Minister Hun Manet. While Cambodia has overseen raids that have freed some trafficked workers, Amnesty said it found more than two-thirds of scam compounds were either not investigated by police or had continued to operate even after police interventions. Two compounds did appear to have been shut down, the group said. During rescue efforts, police did not enter compounds but met representatives who handed over only the victim who had called for help, the group said, while some survivors were beaten by their bosses after trying to contact the police. Cambodia emerged during the pandemic as a hub for the global scam industry as mostly Chinese-led criminal groups repurposed unused casinos and hotels as scam centres housing as many as 100,000 people, according to the United Nations. Similar enclaves have flourished in Myanmar and Laos. The industry in Cambodia now generates more than $12.5 billion annually, opens new tab – half of the country's GDP, according to the United States Institute for Peace. Thailand and Cambodia have traded barbs over the scam issue in recent days as border tensions have heated up, with the Thai prime minister calling for a crackdown in Cambodia and another government official calling the country a hub for cybercrime. The criminal gangs entice trafficking victims with fake job offers posted on social media and then force them to financially exploit people online including through fake romances or 'pig-butchering' schemes in which the scammer builds trust with a victim before stealing their money, Amnesty said. Nine out of 58 survivors interviewed by Amnesty were children, the group said, including a 16-year-old boy from China who was kicked and barred from leaving. Amnesty said it had confirmed the death of a Chinese child in one compound. An 18-year-old Thai survivor told Reuters he was trafficked to a compound in Phnom Penh in 2023 and then, when he tried to leave, sold to another compound close to the Vietnamese border. The man, who asked not to be named, was forced to use deepfake video software to pose as an older attractive man to lure Thai women into handing over their money. After almost a year, he threw himself out of a window, injuring himself, and escaped after hiding in a hospital.
