Mexico negotiates return of international experts for disappeared students probe

By Lizbeth Diaz

MEXICO CITY, March 23 (Reuters) – Mexico’s government is negotiating the return of international experts to take back up investigations into the 2014 disappearance of 43 students in southern Guerrero state, President Claudia Sheinbaum said on Monday.

A truth commission of five independent experts, known as the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts, or GIEI, was established in 2014 by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the Mexican government to investigate the students’ disappearance.

The GIEI worked on the case for more than eight years, exposing investigative failures that led to the release of several former suspects. But after their contracts expired in 2023, they declined to continue, accusing the government of hampering the probe.

The government is trying to establish under what conditions the GIEI members would be willing to participate again, Angela Buitrago, one of the investigators, told Reuters. She said the experts had indicated they were ready to return, though they were awaiting specific terms.

Sheinbaum said during her daily press conference that the government had asked the United Nations for support on designing a new investigative framework.

The investigation would include a more thorough analysis of phone records from the night of the disappearances on September 26, 2014, and new search areas, she added.

The disappearance of the students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers’ College in the southern state of Guerrero remains one of Mexico’s most notorious human rights cases.

The GIEI’s initial reports alleged collusion between police, members of the armed forces, and organized crime.

But, despite dozens of arrests and government promises, no one has ever been convicted for wrongdoing in the case.

Earlier this month, a judge in the border state of Tamaulipas ordered the army to hand over documents relevant to the case. The GIEI had repeatedly requested those documents during its tenure, largely without success.

Sheinbaum on Monday called that court decision “highly questionable,” noting that the case was currently before the Supreme Court and asserting that the defense ministry had already handed over all required documentation.

(Reporting by Lizabeth Diaz, Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)