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Mexico’s top investigator denies misconduct in missing case

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Mexico's head of criminal investigations denied that authorities misrepresented key evidence in the disappearance of 43 students after foreign experts denounced "severe irregularities" in the case.

Tomas Zeron, head of the criminal investigations agency at the attorney general's office, on Wednesday rejected assertions that the discovery of a human bone was made at a different date than stated in official documents.

It is the latest twist in the government's much-criticized investigation into the disappearance of the 43 young men in the southern city of Iguala on September 26, 2014.

Prosecutors say police abducted the students and delivered them to a drug gang, which killed them, incinerated their bodies at a garbage dump in the town of Cocula, and tossed the remains in the nearby San Juan river.

The authorities have said that plastic bags were found in the river on October 29, 2014, containing a human bone that was later identified as belonging to one of the students, Alexander Mora.

The parents of 43 missing students from Ayotzinapa teachers school hold their portraits and torches ...
The parents of 43 missing students from Ayotzinapa teachers school hold their portraits and torches during a march 18 months after their disappearance, in Mexico City, on April 26, 2016
Yuri Cortez, AFP/File

But the experts released a scathing report on Sunday questioning the entire investigation, including "severe irregularities" regarding the handling of evidence at the river.

The commission's experts released a television reporter's video showing Zeron being led by a suspect to the river on October 28.

Zeron admitted that he was at the scene on October 28 but he insisted that the bag was found by a navy diver the next day.

The experts also released a picture, taken by the attorney general's office, showing one of the bags open with a card placed on top by investigators with the date October 28.

But Zeron said a forensic investigator wrote October 28 by mistake and that the picture's metadata, digital information that cannot be altered, shows that the photo was taken on October 29. He said authorities will examine why the card was misdated.

"The video presented by (the experts) has generated suspicions about my actions," Zeron said, adding that his actions on October 28 were legal. "Nothing is better than evidence to counter speculation."

A spokeswoman for the experts told AFP they would hold a press conference on Thursday.

Mexico’s head of criminal investigations denied that authorities misrepresented key evidence in the disappearance of 43 students after foreign experts denounced “severe irregularities” in the case.

Tomas Zeron, head of the criminal investigations agency at the attorney general’s office, on Wednesday rejected assertions that the discovery of a human bone was made at a different date than stated in official documents.

It is the latest twist in the government’s much-criticized investigation into the disappearance of the 43 young men in the southern city of Iguala on September 26, 2014.

Prosecutors say police abducted the students and delivered them to a drug gang, which killed them, incinerated their bodies at a garbage dump in the town of Cocula, and tossed the remains in the nearby San Juan river.

The authorities have said that plastic bags were found in the river on October 29, 2014, containing a human bone that was later identified as belonging to one of the students, Alexander Mora.

The parents of 43 missing students from Ayotzinapa teachers school hold their portraits and torches ...

The parents of 43 missing students from Ayotzinapa teachers school hold their portraits and torches during a march 18 months after their disappearance, in Mexico City, on April 26, 2016
Yuri Cortez, AFP/File

But the experts released a scathing report on Sunday questioning the entire investigation, including “severe irregularities” regarding the handling of evidence at the river.

The commission’s experts released a television reporter’s video showing Zeron being led by a suspect to the river on October 28.

Zeron admitted that he was at the scene on October 28 but he insisted that the bag was found by a navy diver the next day.

The experts also released a picture, taken by the attorney general’s office, showing one of the bags open with a card placed on top by investigators with the date October 28.

But Zeron said a forensic investigator wrote October 28 by mistake and that the picture’s metadata, digital information that cannot be altered, shows that the photo was taken on October 29. He said authorities will examine why the card was misdated.

“The video presented by (the experts) has generated suspicions about my actions,” Zeron said, adding that his actions on October 28 were legal. “Nothing is better than evidence to counter speculation.”

A spokeswoman for the experts told AFP they would hold a press conference on Thursday.

AFP
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