Former Attorney General Jesus Murillo was arrested at his home in Mexico City. He was arrested on charges of enforced disappearance, torture and obstruction of justice in the kidnapping and disappearance of the student-teachers in the southwestern state of Guerrero. Murillo was transferred to the attorney general’s office and will be transferred to a Mexico City jail, authorities said. Within hours of the arrest, a judge issued 83 more arrest warrants — for soldiers, police, Guerrero officials and gang members — in connection with the case, the attorney general’s office said. The mother of one of the 43 missing students protests in Mexico City in 2017. The sign reads, “The only reason I sleep is to dream of your return.” (Yuri Cortez/AFP/Getty Images) During Murillo’s 2012-2015 term under then-President Enrique Pena Nieto, he oversaw the much-criticized investigation into the September 26, 2014, disappearance of students from the Ayutthaya Agricultural College.
Errors and abuses
The remains of only three students were ever found and identified, and questions have haunted Mexico ever since. International experts criticized the official investigation as riddled with errors and abuses, including the torture of witnesses. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador took office in 2018 pledging to clarify what had happened. López Obrador’s administration has sought since 2020 to arrest another former top official, Tomas Zeron, including asking Israel last year to extradite him. When asked about the government’s move to scrutinize the previous investigation, Murillo said he was pleased and open to questioning, local media reported in 2020. Murillo was taken into custody wearing black pants, his hands folded in the pockets of a gray jacket, as a police officer with a rifle slung across his chest stood behind him, according to an image published by local media. The attorney general’s office said Murillo cooperated “without resistance.” Relatives of 43 missing students hold their fists behind photos of their missing family members at a news conference in Mexico City in September 2016. (Marco Ugarte/Associated Press) The arrest comes a day after Mexico’s top human rights official, Alejandro Encinas, called the disappearances a “state crime” involving local, state and federal officials. “What happened? Enforced disappearance of the boys that night by government authorities and criminal groups,” Encinas told a news conference. The highest levels of Peña Nieto’s administration orchestrated a cover-up, Encinas said, including changing crime scenes and concealing ties between authorities and criminals. Murillo took over the Ayotzinapa case in 2014 and called the government’s findings “historical truth.” According to this version, a local drug gang bypassed the students with members of a rival gang, killed them, burned their bodies in a landfill and dumped the remains in a river. Images of the 43 missing rural college students are illuminated during a candlelight vigil in front of the Mexico Attorney General’s office in Mexico City in 2015. (Marco Ugarte/Associated Press) A panel of international experts picked holes in the account, and the United Nations denounced arbitrary detention and torture during the investigation. “Historical truth” eventually became synonymous with the perception of corruption and impunity under Pena Nieto, as anger grew over the lack of answers. Murillo, who was previously a federal lawmaker and governor of Hidalgo state, resigned in 2015 as criticism mounted over his handling of the case. The lawyer for the parents of the Ayotzinapa students, Vidulfo Rosales, urged the government to make more arrests. “There is still a lot to do before we can think that this case is solved,” Rosales told Mexican television. Students hold posters with images of some of the 43 missing students in Mexico City in 2018. (Henry Romero/Reuters)
