Mexico’s Attorney General Arely Gomez, announced on Wednesday that the remains of a second forcibly disappeared Ayotzinapa student have been identified by Austrian forensic experts, a finding that has been outright rejected by the parents of the missing students.
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A more than 400-page analysis was released September 6 by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights – the autonomous rights arm of the Organization of American States – said there is no evidence supporting the government’s central claim.
Last December experts identified a bone fragment as belonging to 19-year-old Alexander Mora.
The officers delivered 43 students to the Guerreros Unidos drug gang, which killed them, burnt their bodies at a garbage dump and tossed the ashes in a river, according to prosecutors, who declared that it was the “historic truth”.
The students disappeared after police attacked a group of protesting students in Iguala, Guerrero.
Under ordinary circumstances, the identification of Guerrero de la Cruz’s remains would back up the government’s version of events.
Current attorney general Gomez, pictured above, told reporters that the Innsbruck scientists used three methods to cross-reference samples of mitochondrial DNA found in the 17 pieces of remains.
Distraught relatives of the missing students have vocally questioned the account offered by the Mexican authorities and have been suspicious of any official word regarding their missing loved ones.
Following the IACHR report, the attorney general’s office continued to insist that a funeral pyre was used to burn the students at the site, though it now says that maybe they were not all incinerated there.
A Mexican government investigation said the group had seized buses for political activities which were shot at by local police.
De la Cruz said news of the identification came as a shock to the families, including the parents of the boy. They are due to meet with President Enrique Pena Nieto later this month.
Gomez said the latest DNA results would be integrated into the investigation and that a judge would issue a ruling on them.
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This week, in response to the damning IACHR report, the Working Group on Enforced Disappearances at the United Nations implored Mexico to follow-up comprehensively to the conclusions that debunked the government’s position.
