MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – The United States has sent files to Mexico to help it in its investigation of the 2014 abduction and presumed massacre of 43 students training to be teachers in Guerrero state, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Monday.
Lopez Obrador said he asked U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris during a May 7 virtual meeting for access to files with information relevant to the kidnapping in the southwestern city of Iguala of trainees from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers’ College by suspected corrupt police working with a drug gang.
“The human rights commission in charge of investigating Ayotzinapa asked me to make a request with the U.S. government to obtain a file the U.S. authorities have, and I asked the Vice President to help us,” said Lopez Obrador.
“I want to take this opportunity to thank her because she has already sent me part of the file … and they are about to send us the rest this week,” he added.
The last government’s heavily-criticized investigation into the crime found that the drug gang killed the 43 students after their abduction and then burned and disposed of their bodies.
But only the remains of two of the students have definitively been identified, and Lopez Obrador, who took office in late 2018, has pledged to clear up the case.
(Reporting by Anthony Esposito; Additional reporting by Raul Cortes; Editing by Alistair Bell)
