Latest news with #Galeana
Yahoo
15-05-2025
- Yahoo
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 ago. Lambertina Galeana Marín was the president of the Superior Tribunal of Justice in the state of Guerrero when the trainee teachers went missing in 2014. The 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 authorities. According to the commission report, local police worked with members of a criminal group to forcibly disappear the students. 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' activities. Guerreros 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 2015. Prosecutors have since alleged that 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. Families searching for sons in drug war 'until last heartbeat'
Yahoo
15-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Retired judge arrested over mass student disappearance in Mexico
Mexican authorities on Wednesday arrested a former senior judge in connection with the disappearance and presumed murders of 43 students a decade ago. Lambertina Galeana, who faces charges of forced disappearance, is accused of helping to conceal videos that allegedly showed the incident unfolding, a government statement said. Security camera videos allegedly captured the moment the students were kidnapped by armed men right in front of a judicial building, El Pais reported. In 2022, a commission concluded that Galeana ordered the videos destroyed because the images "were not clear due to technical problems," the outlet reported. The case, one of the violence-plagued country's worst human rights atrocities, has become emblematic of a missing persons crisis that has seen more than 120,000 people disappear. Galeana, now retired, was president of the Superior Court of Justice in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero, where the students from a rural teacher training college disappeared in September 2014. So far, the remains of only three of the missing students have been found and identified, and relatives denounce impunity. The students from the Ayotzinapa school — whose members have a history of political activism — had commandeered buses to travel to a demonstration in Mexico City when they went missing. Investigators believe they were abducted by a drug cartel with the help of corrupt police, although exactly what happened is unclear. In 2022, a truth commission set up by former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador's government branded the case a "state crime" and said the military shared responsibility, either directly or through negligence. That same year, federal agents arrested former Attorney General Jesús Murillo Karam, who oversaw the original investigation. The commission found that the army was aware of what was happening and had real-time information about the kidnapping and disappearance. One theory the commission put forward was that cartel members targeted the students because they had unknowingly taken a bus with drugs hidden inside. The incident drew international condemnation and shocked a nation where criminal violence, much of it linked to drug trafficking, has claimed around 480,000 lives since 2006. Sneak peek: Fatal First Date Trump teases "good news" on Russia-Ukraine war Blake Shelton talks new music, life with Gwen Stefani and "The Road"
CBS News
15-05-2025
- Politics
- CBS News
Retired judge arrested in connection with disappearance and presumed murders of 43 students in Mexico
Mexican authorities on Wednesday arrested a former senior judge in connection with the disappearance and presumed murders of 43 students a decade ago. Lambertina Galeana, who faces charges of forced disappearance, is accused of helping to conceal videos that allegedly showed the incident unfolding, a government statement said. Security camera videos allegedly captured the moment the students were kidnapped by armed men right in front of a judicial building, El Pais reported. In 2022, a commission concluded that Galeana ordered the videos destroyed because the images "were not clear due to technical problems," the outlet reported. The case, one of the violence-plagued country's worst human rights atrocities, has become emblematic of a missing persons crisis that has seen more than 120,000 people disappear. Galeana, now retired, was president of the Superior Court of Justice in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero, where the students from a rural teacher training college disappeared in September 2014. So far, the remains of only three of the missing students have been found and identified, and relatives denounce impunity. The students from the Ayotzinapa school — whose members have a history of political activism — had commandeered buses to travel to a demonstration in Mexico City when they went missing. Relatives and sympathizers of 43 missing Ayotzinapa university students march with a banner displaying the portraits and names of the students, on the ninth anniversary of their disappearance, in Mexico City, Sept. 26, 2023. Marco Ugarte / AP Investigators believe they were abducted by a drug cartel with the help of corrupt police, although exactly what happened is unclear. In 2022, a truth commission set up by former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador's government branded the case a "state crime" and said the military shared responsibility, either directly or through negligence. That same year, federal agents arrested former Attorney General Jesús Murillo Karam, who oversaw the original investigation. The commission found that the army was aware of what was happening and had real-time information about the kidnapping and disappearance. One theory the commission put forward was that cartel members targeted the students because they had unknowingly taken a bus with drugs hidden inside. The incident drew international condemnation and shocked a nation where criminal violence, much of it linked to drug trafficking, has claimed around 480,000 lives since 2006.
