Latest news with #Ayotzinapa
CNN
16-05-2025
- Politics
- CNN
Retired judge arrested over 2014 disappearance of 43 students in Mexico
Over a decade after 43 students from a rural teaching college vanished in southern Mexico, a new arrest has stirred fresh scrutiny and reopened old wounds. On Thursday, Mexican authorities detained now-retired judge, 79-year-old Lambertina Galeana Marín, over missing evidence in the case. The arrest is related to the 'disappearance of recordings from cameras' placed in the Palace of Justice in Iguala, in the Mexican State of Guerrero, where the students were last seen. Marín served as the president of the Superior Court of Justice of Guerrero at the time of the case. Arrest warrants were issued in August of 2022 for military commanders, police officers, and 'five administrative and judicial authorities from the state of Guerrero,' though at the time, the Attorney General's Office (FGR) did not identify the individuals allegedly involved. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum spoke about Marin's arrest in Friday morning press conference. She said that the special prosecutor's office is investigating why videos related to the case were erased, an issue she noted families of those who disappeared in 2014 have been raising for a long time. Sheinbaum replaced Andrés Manuel López Obrador in 2024, who left the presidency without fulfilling a key pledge to uncover the truth regarding the 2014 disappearances of 43 students. The case of the missing students has long gripped Mexico. The students, all males at the local Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers' College, were traveling through the southwestern city of Iguala on September 26, 2014 when their bus was stopped by local police and military forces. Exactly what transpired after that interaction is still unknown, but photos from the scene show a bullet-riddled bus. A government report from 2022 concluded that the vanished students were victims of 'state sponsored crime.' In 2023, a report from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in Mexico found that Mexico's Armed Forces did not provide all the information requested by an independent panel investigating the disappearance. That same year, experts on that panel looking into the case quit, citing 'lack of information,' 'secrecy' and 'hidden evidence' surrounding their investigative efforts. For grieving families, the arrest reinforces suspicions of a possible cover-up related to the 2014 disappearances. Felipe de la Cruz, one of the Ayotzinapa parents and spokesperson for the group of parents of the disappeared, told CNN on Thursday that a 'pact of silence continues to reign' in the area. 'For us, it is very important that first of all, the investigation continues, and that work continues to be done,' de la Cruz added.
CNN
16-05-2025
- Politics
- CNN
Retired judge arrested over 2014 disappearance of 43 students in Mexico
Over a decade after 43 students from a rural teaching college vanished in southern Mexico, a new arrest has stirred fresh scrutiny and reopened old wounds. On Thursday, Mexican authorities detained now-retired judge, 79-year-old Lambertina Galeana Marín, over missing evidence in the case. The arrest is related to the 'disappearance of recordings from cameras' placed in the Palace of Justice in Iguala, in the Mexican State of Guerrero, where the students were last seen. Marín served as the president of the Superior Court of Justice of Guerrero at the time of the case. Arrest warrants were issued in August of 2022 for military commanders, police officers, and 'five administrative and judicial authorities from the state of Guerrero,' though at the time, the Attorney General's Office (FGR) did not identify the individuals allegedly involved. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum spoke about Marin's arrest in Friday morning press conference. She said that the special prosecutor's office is investigating why videos related to the case were erased, an issue she noted families of those who disappeared in 2014 have been raising for a long time. Sheinbaum replaced Andrés Manuel López Obrador in 2024, who left the presidency without fulfilling a key pledge to uncover the truth regarding the 2014 disappearances of 43 students. The case of the missing students has long gripped Mexico. The students, all males at the local Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers' College, were traveling through the southwestern city of Iguala on September 26, 2014 when their bus was stopped by local police and military forces. Exactly what transpired after that interaction is still unknown, but photos from the scene show a bullet-riddled bus. A government report from 2022 concluded that the vanished students were victims of 'state sponsored crime.' In 2023, a report from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in Mexico found that Mexico's Armed Forces did not provide all the information requested by an independent panel investigating the disappearance. That same year, experts on that panel looking into the case quit, citing 'lack of information,' 'secrecy' and 'hidden evidence' surrounding their investigative efforts. For grieving families, the arrest reinforces suspicions of a possible cover-up related to the 2014 disappearances. Felipe de la Cruz, one of the Ayotzinapa parents and spokesperson for the group of parents of the disappeared, told CNN on Thursday that a 'pact of silence continues to reign' in the area. 'For us, it is very important that first of all, the investigation continues, and that work continues to be done,' de la Cruz added.
CNN
16-05-2025
- Politics
- CNN
Retired judge arrested over 2014 disappearance of 43 students in Mexico
Over a decade after 43 students from a rural teaching college vanished in southern Mexico, a new arrest has stirred fresh scrutiny and reopened old wounds. On Thursday, Mexican authorities detained now-retired judge, 79-year-old Lambertina Galeana Marín, over missing evidence in the case. The arrest is related to the 'disappearance of recordings from cameras' placed in the Palace of Justice in Iguala, in the Mexican State of Guerrero, where the students were last seen. Marín served as the president of the Superior Court of Justice of Guerrero at the time of the case. Arrest warrants were issued in August of 2022 for military commanders, police officers, and 'five administrative and judicial authorities from the state of Guerrero,' though at the time, the Attorney General's Office (FGR) did not identify the individuals allegedly involved. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum spoke about Marin's arrest in Friday morning press conference. She said that the special prosecutor's office is investigating why videos related to the case were erased, an issue she noted families of those who disappeared in 2014 have been raising for a long time. Sheinbaum replaced Andrés Manuel López Obrador in 2024, who left the presidency without fulfilling a key pledge to uncover the truth regarding the 2014 disappearances of 43 students. The case of the missing students has long gripped Mexico. The students, all males at the local Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers' College, were traveling through the southwestern city of Iguala on September 26, 2014 when their bus was stopped by local police and military forces. Exactly what transpired after that interaction is still unknown, but photos from the scene show a bullet-riddled bus. A government report from 2022 concluded that the vanished students were victims of 'state sponsored crime.' In 2023, a report from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in Mexico found that Mexico's Armed Forces did not provide all the information requested by an independent panel investigating the disappearance. That same year, experts on that panel looking into the case quit, citing 'lack of information,' 'secrecy' and 'hidden evidence' surrounding their investigative efforts. For grieving families, the arrest reinforces suspicions of a possible cover-up related to the 2014 disappearances. Felipe de la Cruz, one of the Ayotzinapa parents and spokesperson for the group of parents of the disappeared, told CNN on Thursday that a 'pact of silence continues to reign' in the area. 'For us, it is very important that first of all, the investigation continues, and that work continues to be done,' de la Cruz added.
BBC News
15-05-2025
- BBC News
Mexican judge arrested over 2014 disappearance of 43 students
Police in Mexico have arrested a retired judge accused of tampering with evidence related to the disappearance of 43 students from Iguala more than a decade Galeana Marín was the president of the Superior Tribunal of Justice in the state of Guerrero when the trainee teachers went missing in 79-year-old is suspected of having given an order that led to the disappearance of CCTV footage which investigators said was key to the case. She was arrested in the city of Chilpancingo, three years after a warrant for her arrest had been issued. Families of 43 missing students in Mexico are still demanding justice The disappearance of the 43 students - who all attended the same teacher training college in the town of Ayotzinapa - has long haunted Mexico. More than a decade on, and despite several investigations, much is still unknown about what happened on the night of 26 September 2014. The remains of three of the students have been found, while the whereabouts of the 40 others remain a mystery, although they are widely presumed to have been killed. A 2022 report by a truth commission tasked by the Mexican government with investigating the case found that it was a state-sponsored crime involving federal and state to the commission report, local police worked members of a criminal group to forcibly disappear the students had gone to Iguala to commandeer buses to take them to an annual protest in Mexico City. The Mexican government said both the police and a local criminal group known as Guerreros Unidos (United Warriors) had been alerted to the students' Unidos suspected that the students seizing busses in Iguala had been infiltrated by members of a rival criminal gang, Los Rojos, the report alleged. Both the police and members of Guerreros Unidos then mounted several roadblocks in and around the city, it added. One of those roadblocks, manned by local, state and federal police was on the street outside the Palace of Justice. Two Palace of Justice employees told investigators that the palace's security cameras had captured what had happened at the roadblock. However, the footage was never handed over to the authorities and when officials attempted to retrieve it almost a year later, the footage had been "lost", investigators said in have since alleged that it Ms Galeana gave the order to have the footage destroyed or deleted. In an official statement, Mexico's security ministry said Ms Galeana would face charges of forced disappearance.
