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Mexico"s National Human Rights Commission is questioning the government"s investigation into what happened to 43 missing college students who investigators say were killed and incinerated last September.
The commission on Thursday issued a list of 32 omissions in the investigation and recommendations that it said are vital to solving the case, even though the Attorney General"s Office gave its comprehensive official version of what happened in January.
Its report lists key people and evidence, including a cellphone message from one student after he would have been kidnapped, that were never pursued in the Sept. 26 attacks in the southern city of Iguala.
"All of the things listed are not in the case file, and so in our view have not been done. And they are things very important to the case," commission President Luis Raul Gonzalez Perez said.
The Attorney General"s Office said only that it had received the report and did not comment on its criticisms. The agency reiterated that it is committed to an exhaustive and transparent investigation.
The teachers college students from the state of Guerrero disappeared while commandeering transit buses for a protest in Mexico City. The Attorney General"s Office says the students were arrested by local police and handed over to a drug cartel, which killed and incinerated them at a garbage dump. Their remains were allegedly put in garbage bags and dumped in a nearby river.
But the commission"s report says the federal investigation had not developed profiles of each of the missing students that would include basic details such as blood type, fingerprints and distinguishing characteristics such as scars or tattoos, which it termed a "basic tool" of any search.
Many of the report"s observations concern the collection and analysis of evidence from the garbage dump in Cocula and the San Juan river where allegedly bags of their remains were dumped. That part of the government"s version has drawn the most criticism from families and other observers.
For example, the report lists a number of people known only by nickname who were allegedly involved at the dump, but who have not been arrested. It calls for the navy divers who recovered remains in the river to be interviewed. It recommends comparing the soil recovered in the bags of remains with soil from the dump to see if it matches. It says bullet casings recovered from the dump site should undergo ballistic testing to see if they match any recovered weapons. It suggests investigators have never established if the remains found at the river are human or animal.
The report recommends investigators identify and interview people who lived near where the attacks took place in Iguala a seemingly basic step in an investigation especially those who gave refuge to some students. It says authorities never did forensic tests on clothing found near the buses where the attacks occurred.
The report also says the students" families never received proper medical and psychological support and still live amid the same crime and insecurity that led to the disappearances, which the attorney general said involved a drug cartel working with local police.
Source: http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/mexico-rights-group-errors-omissions-case-43-missing-32642531
