Former Mexican governor charged in case of 43 students who vanished in 2014

The former governor of Guerrero state in Mexico has been formally charged over his alleged involvement in the disappearance of 43 students in 2014, a case that has become a symbol of the country’s brutal cartel violence and government impunity.

Ángel Aguirre, who was was arrested last week, is accused of forced disappearance and obstruction of justice for ordering the destruction of surveillance tapes that may have shed light on what happened to the students from the Ayotzinapa teacher training college on the night of 26 September 2014.

On Wednesday, a judge ruled Mexico’s attorney general had presented enough evidence to formally charge Aguirre with forced disappearance and ordered that he remain in a maximum security prison awaiting trial.

A lawyer for Aguirre denied his client’s wrongdoing. Guillermo Baradas told reporters: “We presented evidence demonstrating a high-level meeting attended by Mr Ángel Aguirre at the time the videos were allegedly handed over to him.”

Aguirre’s indictment is the biggest breakthrough in the Ayotzinapa case since the 2022 arrest of Jesús Murillo Karam, who served as Mexico’s attorney general at the time of the students' abduction.

The brutality of the case rocked Mexico and continues to haunt the country more than a decade on. With the remains of only three students identified, it is not known what happened to the 40 others.

On the night that they were abducted, the students from the Raúl Isidros Burgos teacher training college in the village of Ayotzinapa had commandeered several buses in the city of Iguala to get to a protest in Mexico City.

But before they could leave Iguala, in Guerrero state, the students were attacked by a local criminal gang working with municipal police. A years-long international investigation determined that federal forces, both police and military, were also involved either by participating directly or failing to intervene as the students were taken away and presumably killed.

The government at the time orchestrated an elaborate coverup, attempting to place blame for the attack solely on the criminal gang and local police. Suspects were tortured into giving false confessions and crime scene evidence was manipulated.

Meltión Ortega, a spokesperson for the 43 students, said: “We want no more deception; we want to be told the truth and for those responsible to be punished. The victims from Guerrero deserve to have the actual perpetrators and the masterminds punished, rather than just seeing a charade, as has happened in serious cases of human rights violations.”

Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, has vowed to get to the bottom of what happened to the students and formed an investigative unit to dig into the case last year.

“I’m going to put all my effort, all my energy, all my willpower [towards obtaining truth and justice],” she told reporters at a news conference last week.