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Mexico issues warrant for Iguala mayor and wife

Richard ConnorOctober 23, 2014

Mexican officials have ordered the arrest of a town mayor, his wife and a local police chief. The prosecutor claims the three were the masterminds behind an attack that left six students dead - with dozens more missing.

https://p.dw.com/p/1Da5Q
Proteste im mexikanischen Bundesstaat Guerrero
Image: AFP/Getty Images/P. Pardo

Mexico's Attorney General Jesus Murillo on Wednesday said information from a gang leader had led to the arrest warrants being issued over the students' deaths and disappearances.

"We have issued warrants for the arrest of Iguala Mayor Jose Luis Abarca, his wife Mrs Pineda Villa and police chief Felipe Flores Velazquez," Murillo told a press conference. All three of those named were currently fugitives.

The attorney general claimed the three were: "the individuals who likely organized the events that took place in Iguala." Authorities claim police abducted the students and handed them over to a gang.

The case sparked national uproar, with protests in Mexico City as well as Chilpancingo, the capital of Guerrero state where the disappearances took place.

In addition to the six students that were found dead, another 43 - from the same rural teaching college, known for radical activities - appear to have been abducted near Iguala on September 26.

Mexiko La Parota Polizei Massengrab Inspektion 04.10.2014
The investigation of a mass grave site near Iguala yielded no link with the studentsImage: picture-alliance/dpa/EFE

Authorities sent federal police into Iguala and have arrested more than 50 people in connection with the incident, including the leader of the Guerreros Unidos gang, Sidronio Casarrubias.

Murillo said Casarrubias had told prosecutors that the mayor and his wife, Maria de los Angeles Pineda, had ordered two local police forces to stop the students.

Family drug links

Abarca was said to have given "police the order to confront" students, who were known for frequent protests.

Mexican media, citing intelligence sources, say that Abarca's wife - the sister of at least three known drug traffickers - had been afraid the students would interrupt a speech she was due to give that night.

Authorities say that corrupt police officers were among those who shot at buses the students had commandeered. It is believed that Iguala police handed the surviving students over to police in the neighboring town of Cocula, who in turn delivered them to the Guerreros Unidos gang.

Searchers are still combing the region around Iguala by land and air, but there has so far been no trace of the missing students.

On Wednesday, a group of frustrated protesters set fire to the Iguala city hall building over the unsolved disappearances. Thousands had marched in a demonstration staged in the town earlier, the latest in a series of protests.

rc/av (AP, AFP, Reuter, dpa)