Ángel Aguirre, the former governor of Mexico's Guerrero state, has been formally indicted on charges related to the 2014 disappearance of 43 students, a case that shook the nation and became a symbol of the bloody violence of drug cartels and the government's inability to address it.
Aguirre, who was arrested last week, faces charges of forced disappearance and obstruction of justice for allegedly ordering the destruction of surveillance footage that could have shed light on the fate of the students from the Ayotzinapa teacher training college on the night of September 26, 2014. On Wednesday, a judge ruled that Mexico's attorney general's office had presented sufficient evidence to indict Aguirre and ordered him to remain in a maximum-security prison pending trial.
Aguirre's lawyer, Guillermo Baradas, rejected the accusations against his client. He told reporters: "We have presented evidence showing that a high-level meeting involving Ángel Aguirre took place at the time the tapes were supposedly handed over to him."
The indictment of Aguirre marks the biggest breakthrough in the Ayotzinapa case since Jesús Murillo Karam, Mexico's attorney general at the time of the abduction, was arrested in 2022.
The brutality of the case shocked Mexico and has haunted the country for more than a decade. With remains of only three students identified so far, the fate of the other 40 remains unknown.
On the night they were abducted, students from the Raúl Isidro Burgos rural teachers' college in the village of Ayotzinapa commandeered several buses in the city of Iguala to travel to a protest in Mexico City. But before they could leave Iguala, in Guerrero state, they were attacked by a local crime gang, with the complicity of municipal police. A multi-year international investigation determined that federal forces, both police and military, were also involved, either directly participating or failing to intervene as the students were taken away and allegedly killed.
The government at the time orchestrated a massive cover-up, attempting to blame the crime gang and local police. Suspects were tortured into giving false confessions, and crime scene evidence was manipulated.
Meltión Ortega, a spokesman for the families of the 43 students, said: "We do not want to be deceived anymore; we want to hear the truth and those responsible to be punished. The victims from Guerrero deserve to see those truly responsible for the crime and the masterminds punished, rather than watching a spectacle as has happened in other serious human rights violations."
Mexico's President Claudia Sheinbaum has pledged to uncover the truth about the case and created a special investigation unit last year. She told reporters at a news conference last week: "I will dedicate all my effort, all my energy, and my will to achieving truth and justice."
