Authorities in Mexico arrested a former governor in connection with the cover-up of an infamous massacre where police forces kidnapped 43 education students during a protest. The police turned them over to cartel gunmen who are believed to have slaughtered them and disposed of their bodies.
The arrest took place on Wednesday afternoon in Mexico State when authorities arrested Angel Aguirre, who was the governor of Guerrero in 2014 at the time of the massacre. He is accused of helping to cover up the incident. Soon after the arrest, Mexico’s Attorney General Ernestina Godoy released a video on social media where she provided details of the case and what led authorities to move against Aguirre.
Known as the Ayotzinapa massacre, the kidnapping and murders happened in September 2014, when a group of student stole some buses to make their way to a protest. As Breitbart Texas reported, along the way, Mexican authorities shot at the buses and kidnapped the students, only to turn them over to a local cartel. The cartel gunmen then murdered the students and disposed of their bodies. The case sparked much controversy amid allegations of government cover-ups and false accounts of the students’ fate. In the 12 years since the massacre, only the remains of a handful have been located.
According to Godoy, the investigation into the case revealed that Aguirre ordered the destruction of evidence in the case that showed that Mexican police forces had been responsible for the initial kidnapping of the students. Godoy claimed that the surveillance cameras of the city hall in the town of Iguala captured the moment when police forces stopped a bus that the students had stolen and proceeded to kidnap them. During the investigation, government officials claimed there were no video recordings of the incident. The new investigation revealed that there was a video of the kidnapping.
As part of the investigation, authorities interviewed a cooperating witness who revealed that the videos from Iguala were taken by a government official and given directly to Aguirre. A second witness told authorities that during a meeting with high officials, Aguirre had ordered the destruction of any evidence that connected government officials with the kidnapping in Iguala.
Ildefonso Ortiz is an award-winning journalist with Breitbart News Foundation. He co-founded Breitbart News Foundation’s Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and senior Breitbart management. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. He can be contacted at Iortiz@breitbart.com.
Brandon Darby is the managing director and editor-in-chief of Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart News Foundation’s Cartel Chronicles project with Ildefonso Ortiz and senior Breitbart management. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. He can be contacted at bdarby@breitbart.com.