Foreign experts say Mexico hindered probe of 43 missing

Independent investigators issued a scathing report today on the disappearance of 43 Mexican students, accusing the government of obstructing their probe and questioning the role of federal forces in the tragedy.
After a year-long investigation ending this month, the foreign experts from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights were unable to resolve a case that has shocked the international community and sparked protests against President Enrique Pena Nieto.
While the mystery remains, the report calls for investigations into the conduct of federal police and the military on the night of September 26-27, 2014, when the 43 young men vanished in the city of Iguala, southern Guerrero state.

The experts also invoked allegations of torture against as many as 17 of the more than 100 suspects detained in the case.
But part of the 605-page report -- the second of their mission -- is dedicated to the "obstructions" that the experts faced from the authorities and which became worse from January.
The authorities showed "little interest" in moving forward with new lines of investigation and it was "impossible" for the experts to reinterview 17 suspects in prison, the report said.

"The group has also suffered a (media) campaign that seeks to discredit people as a way to question their work," said the report by the five-member panel -- two lawyers from Colombia, another from Chile, a former attorney general of Guatemala and a Spanish psychologist.

The government has said that it cooperated with the group, giving them unusual access and enough time to investigate.
The experts arrived in Mexico in March 2015 at the request of the victims' parents and after the government agreed to their mission. Their mandate was renewed once, but the authorities decided against giving them another extension.
Prosecutors say the students were attacked by municipal police after the young men stole five buses that they planned to use for a future protest. Three students and three bystanders were killed on the spot.
The officers then handed over 43 students to the Guerreros Unidos drug gang, which killed them and incinerated their bodies at a garbage dump in the nearby town of Cocula, according to the government's account.