More Questions Than Answers Remain in Case of 43 Kidnapped Mexican Students

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Almost nine months have passed since a group of 43 education students form the rural Mexican town of Aytozinapa were shot at and kidnapped by local police, Mexican drug cartels, and possibly the Mexican federal government.

As time has passed since the fateful events of September 26, 2014, parents of those missing students have gotten more questions than answers, and developed a deeper mistrust of the Mexican government.

As previously reported by Breitbart Texas, on that night a group of students from Ayotzinapa had hijacked various buses passenger buses in Iguala, in order to make their way to a political event in Mexico City. Their journey took them through the town of Cocula, where police officers began firing at the buses, killing six people and injuring several others.

Since that night, many questions remain as to how 43 students from those buses went missing, and haven’t been heard from again. In the months after the brutal attack, Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office held regular news conferences until the head of the agency at the time, Jesus Murillo Karam, announced that the students had been kidnapped by local police under order of Iguala’s mayor Jose Luis Abarca.

Then, as Breitbart Texas has previously reported, the students were turned over to a local drug cartel called Guerreros Unidos… who butchered the students, incinerated them in a landfill, and disposed of their remains in trash bags that were dumped in a river.

Not long after this ghastly announcement was made, skeptics began to debunk the official version. As Breitbart Texas previously reported, scientists were claiming that it would have been impossible for 43 bodies to have been incinerated in the landfill using fuel and tires as described by the government without leaving a large amount of residue.

The killing blow to the government narrative came when a highly respected group of international forensic scientists, enlisted to help the government identify the remains of the students, spoke out about the government fabricating and manipulating evidence in the case. Breitbart Texas previously reported on the Mexican government’s fruitless attempts to counter the claims made by the group they once relied on to make their narrative believable.

Breitbart Texas spoke with relatives of two missing students earlier this year as they took part in a caravan across the U.S., asking for support in the search of their loved one. Clemente Rodriguez, the father of 19-year-old Christian Alfonso Rodriguez, has fought for answers, but found many more questions. During his visit to Texas, Rodriguez told Breitbart Texas he is certain about the involvement of the Mexican military and the federal police in the kidnapping of his son.

Rodriguez, along with other parents, have continued to demand answers from the government, and demanded to be given access to the military bases in the area to search for their sons or their remains.

The involvement of the Mexican military and Mexican federal police became more and more pointed following a series of articles published by Mexico’s Proceso Magazine, along with Berkley University’s Investigative Journalism Program. The joint effort has led to the publication of video interviews, clips and photos which continue to counter the narrative bought forth by the Mexican government.

According to the official version, after getting arrested by Iguala and Cocula police officers, the students were taken to the local jail before being taken out of the area and turned over to cartel members.

Based on a recorded interview with Ulises Bernabe Garcia, that was not the case. Garcia was the magistrate judge in the town of Cocula on the fateful night. Based on his testimony, there were only six men at the jail that night on drunkenness charges.

According to Garcia, at around 11:20 p.m. a Mexican army captain, accompanied by about six troops, walked in asking to search the detention area, claiming to look for a motorcycle. Garcia allowed the soldiers to search the station, after which they departed.

The presence of the soldiers at those hours contradicts the official government narrative that troops and federal police forces were in the military fort until the next morning.

Garcia has since fled Central Mexico and is seeking political asylum after officials covering up the case tried to drag him into the investigation, accusing him of taking part in the kidnapping.

Follow Ildefonso Ortiz on Twitter and on Facebook.

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