Mexico: A Mexican army general has been detained in connection with the disappearance of 43 students in 2014. The latest arrest in a case that generated international condemnation.
The incident occurred in the area of southern Mexico. A general who commanded the battalion is among the three suspects. Deputy Security Minister Ricardo Mejia told reporters.
He did not identify the suspects but said the other two were also military personnel.
Last month arrest warrants were out for more than 80 suspects in this case. Suspects include 20 military personnel, 44 police officers and 14 cartel members.
Former Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam is also in custody. He led a controversial investigation into the mass disappearance. The charges of forced disappearance, torture and obstruction of justice are on the Attorney General.
The case is one of the worst human rights tragedies in Mexico, where a spiral of drug-related violence has left more than 100,000 people missing.
Before they went missing, the teaching students had commandeered buses in the southern state of Guerrero to travel to a demonstration in Mexico City.
Investigators said the students were in the custody of corrupt police. The police handed them over to a drug cartel. The drug cartel mistook them for members of a rival gang. However, exactly what happened to them is disputed.
According to an official report presented in 2015 by the government of then-President Enrique Pena Nieto, cartel members killed the students and incinerated their remains at a garbage dump.
Relatives, independent experts and the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights rejected those conclusions.
A truth commission tasked by the government last month to investigate the atrocity branded the case a “state crime” involving agents of various institutions. It said that military personnel bore “clear responsibility,” either directly or through negligence.
So far, the identification of only three victims has been in view.