News Digest

Missing Mexican students not in mass graves, trail of corruption deepens

The mystery over the fate of 43 Mexican students missing since an attack by gang-linked police deepened Tuesday after authorities said none were among 28 bodies found in a mass grave. Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam announced the arrest of 14 other local police officers in the state of Guerrero accused of abducting the students and handing them over to a drug gang. Witnesses saw several students being taken away in patrol cars. Authorities have arrested 26 Iguala police officers and eight other people, including four Guerreros Unidos members. The case has highlighted Mexico’s struggle to purge corrupt police and officials in towns dominated by drug cartels.

We have some [DNA] results for the first pits and I can tell you that they do not match the DNA that relatives of these young men have given us.

Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam

The students, from a teacher training college near the state capital Chilpancingo, say they were in Iguala for fundraising activities and seized buses to return home. In addition to the new arrests in Guerrero, authorities said a Guerreros Unidos leader, Benjamin Mondragon, killed himself rather than surrender to federal police who had surrounded him in the neighboring state of Morelos on Tuesday.