Retired Mexican General Arrested for Killings of ‘Disappeared’ Students
LOCKED UP
A retired Mexican Army general has been arrested and imprisoned for allegedly ordering the murders of six students who went missing in Guerrero in 2014, according to local media reports. Retired Gen. José Rodríguez Pérez was a colonel in charge of the 27th infantry battalion when 43 students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers College—deemed “radical” by local authorities—disappeared in Iguala. Perez is the first member of the military to be arrested since authorities announced that 83 arrest warrants were issued last month against 20 military commanders and soldiers. Dozens of police officers were also the subject of arrest warrants, along with 14 members of a criminal group. An investigation into the students’ deaths—considered one of the country’s worst human rights scandals—found that the six students were kept alive in a warehouse for several days after being handed over to a military commander who had them killed, Interior Undersecretary Alejandro Encinas said last month. The students had reportedly been snatched off buses by local police before being handed over to members of the military. Their bodies were never recovered, though bone fragments have been matched to three of them.