On September 12th, a federal judge acquitted Jose Luis Abarca, former mayor of the municipality of Iguala, for his alleged participation in the disappearance of the 43 students from the Ayotzinapa Normal Rural School in 2014. However, he will continue to be imprisoned for other judicial proceedings, including the execution of two social activists and accusations of links with organized crime, the group called “Guerrero Unidos”.
“Tamaulipas judge Samuel Ventura Ramos, who freed 77 alleged perpetrators involved in the disappearance of the Ayotzinapa students, today acquitted Jose Luis Abarca, one of the main people involved in the disappearance of the youths. The Prosecutor’s Office has sufficient elements to appeal this unfortunate act of impunity”, tweeted Alejandro Encinas, Undersecretary for Human Rights of the federal government. It should be remembered that in its last report in August, the Commission for Truth and Access to Justice in the Ayotzinapa Case concluded that the former mayor ordered the disappearance of the students on the night of September 26th, 2014.
At the same time, with a mass, a political rally and a blockade of the Sol Mexico-Acapulco Highway in Chilpancingo, relatives of the 43 began a “National Day of Struggle against the Debt of Justice of the State for the Paths of Truth” that was will take place in Guerrero and Mexico City to continue demanding justice in the case. Part of the demands have to do with the fact that three weeks after the Prosecutor’s Office announced arrest warrants against dozens of soldiers and police, there is no news of any capture. “If they already know that it was the State that disappeared them, what are they doing to arrest those responsible?”, asked Doña María Martinez, mother of one of the 43 student teachers from Ayotzinapa.
For more information in Spanish:
Juez que liberó a 77 del caso Ayotzinapa absuelve a Abarca (La Jornada, 15 de septiembre de 2022)
El exalcalde José Luis Abarca es absuelto por la desaparición de los 43 de Ayotzinapa (Proceso, 14 de septiembre de 2022)
Con Abarca, 97 absueltos por el caso de Ayotzinapa (Milenio, 14 de septiembre de 2022)
Un juez absuelve al exalcalde de Iguala José Luis Abarca del secuestro de los 43 estudiantes de Ayotzinapa (El País, 14 de septiembre de 2022)
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