Former attorney general arrested over the disappearance of 43 students

A former attorney general of Mexico has been arrested in connection to the disappearance of 43 students in the Mexican state of Guerrero.

In 2014, 43 male teaching students are believed to have been murdered by a cartel.

The kidnapping happened on the 26 September 2014 in the rural village of Ayotzinapa, where the male students were taken by corrupt police on their way to a protest.

They were later handed over to the Guerreros United Cartel.

Jesus Murillo Karam was the attorney general at the time of this horrifying ordeal.

He served in that role between 2012 and 2015 under under former President Enrique Pena Nieto.

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Alongside Karam, a further 83 arrest warrants were made in connection to the nearly eight-year-old kidnapping.

Thirty-three local police officers, 11 state police, 20 army soldier officers and 14 gang members have all been arrested by the prosecution too, in what is biggest mass arrests by civilian prosecutors of Mexican army soldiers.

Alejandro Gertz Manero, who is the current in-office attorney general for Mexico said Karam had been arrested and charged with torture, official misconduct and forced disappearance.

Gertz Manero has been very critical of his predecessor in the past.

In 2020, Murillo Karam had been involved in the crime by 'orchestrating a massive media trick' and leading a 'generalised cover-up' of the case.

This was before any charges had been brought to the controversial former attorney general.

The arrest of Murillo Karam comes just a day after a commission set up to determine what happened on that day in 2014 concluded its findings.

In its research, it said the army were at least was at least partly responsible for the kidnappings.

It also concluded that a single solider had infiltrated the student group and once the army had knew about the abductions, they did nothing to stop it.

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Unfortunately, the bodies of the victims have never been found. But fragments of burnt bone have been discovered, which match the DNA of three of the students.

As of this day, the motives of this kidnapping are unknown.

Former attorney general Murillo Karam came under pressure in 2014 to quickly solve the case for the victim's families.

He announced that the 43 students had been killed and their bodies had been burnt at rubbish dump in the nearby Cocula by members of the drug gang.

Later investigations by independent companies and the attorney general's office revealed these findings were untrue.