TAXCO , Mexico, Sept. 18 (UPI) — Mexican authorities announced the arrest Friday of a high-ranking drug cartel figure in the disappearance of 43 students in 2014.
Gildardo Lopez Astudillo, 36, known as “El Gil” and a leader of the Guerreros Unidos drug gang, was captured in Taxco, Guerrero state. National Security Commissioner Renato Sales on Thursday described him as the “intellectual author” of the students’ disappearance.
The government said Astudillo gave orders to capture and kill the students of the Rural Normal School of Ayotzinapa.
A government probe, many parts of which have been discredited by independent investigators, says local police, believing the students to be part of a rival gang, illegally detained the group and turned them over to the Guerreros Unidos group, who then killed them and incinerated their bodies.
A report by the Inter-American Human rights Commission alleged flaws in the official investigation and noted the disappearance of key evidence.
Relatives of the missing students have demanded an investigation of the possible involvement of government military leaders in the disappearance.
