Mexico warns Israel for 'protecting' suspect in disappearance of 43 students
Mexico has warned that if Israel continues with its refusal to extradite a fugitive security official wanted in connection with the disappearance of 43 Mexican college students a decade ago, their bilateral ties may be damaged.
Back in September 2014, 43 male students disappeared from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers’ College after being abducted in Iguala, in the southwestern state of Guerrero. The students were traveling to a demonstration in Mexico City amid a drug war.
The official narrative by the government said at the time that corrupt police handed the ill-fated students over to drug gang henchmen, who then incinerated the students at a garbage dump and threw the ashes in the San Juan River.
Questioning the official narrative by some experts as well as growing anger in Mexico at federal inaction prompted the current administration, led by President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, to pledge to re-open the case.
Tomas Zeron, who headed the Criminal Investigation Agency that led the inquiry into the case – dubbed one of Mexico’s worst human rights tragedies – is wanted by the Mexican justice system for the crimes of torture, violation of human rights and forced disappearance of the 43 students.
“The lack of progress in resolving this case is interpreted as de facto protection by Israel of Tomas Zeron and threatens to become an irritating and disruptive factor with” Tel Aviv, the Mexican foreign ministry said in a statement on Friday.
The former official, who fled to Israel in 2020, has also been charged with the abuse of power and authority, embezzlement, fraud and criminal association. He has consistently denied all allegations.
Although Mexico and Israel do not have an extradition treaty, Mexico City has repeatedly asked Tel Aviv to hand over Zeron over allegations of serious irregularities in the probe into the said case, but all to no avail.
Zeron is one of the architects of the 2015 official narrative or the so-called “historical truth” regarding the fate of the disappeared students, whose exact circumstances of their disappearance are still unknown.
The victims’ families have so far strongly rejected that narrative.
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