The results of DNA testing done by a European laboratory confirmed the identification of one of the 43 education students that had been kidnapped by police and later executed by a drug cartel.
On Sunday noon, Mexico’s Attorney General Jose Murillo Karam spoke in a televised press conference where he said that testing of human remains sent by his agency (PGR) to the University of Innsbruck had in fact given a match to Alexander Mora Venancio one of the 43 missing students.
Mora and other students from the rural town of Ayotzinapa had been traveling to a protest when 44 police officers from the towns of Iguala and Cocula kidnapped them and then turned them over to a drug cartel called Guerrero’s Unidos, according to information previously released by the PGR.
According to confessions by the hitmen the students were executed, their bodies set on fire and the ashes disposed of, PGR officials have said before. Based on the confessions, authorities believe that the students were mistaken for rival cartel members trying to sneak into the area.
The disappearance has led to massive protests throughout Mexico over the worsening security conditions in that country.
On Saturday, a South American group of forensic specialists had made the announcement confirming the identity of Mora; however it remains unclear of the level of cooperation between the Argentinian forensic group and the PGR.
The findings strengthen the PGR’s version of the event which came into question by protesters who refused to accept the student’s death.
“The investigation remains open until we capture every single one of the responsible parties,” Murillo Karam said in Spanish during the press conference.
Follow Ildefonso Ortiz on Twitter @ildefonsoortiz
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