The orders were issued against “20 military commanders and troops from Battalions 27 and 41 in the city of Iguala and five administrative and judicial authorities in Guerrero State; 26 police officers from Huitzuco; six from Iguala and one from Cocula; plus 11 Guerrero state police officers and 14 members of the Guerreros Unidos criminal group,” the statement said.
The group is accused of “organized crime, enforced disappearance, torture, manslaughter and crimes against the administration of justice,” prosecutors said.
The public prosecutor’s office did not name those allegedly involved, only adding that both the arrests and the allegations “will be disclosed in the relevant criminal proceedings”.
As of Saturday afternoon, the institutions had not publicly commented on the arrest warrants. CNN reached out to them for comments, and they didn’t respond.
The students were visiting the southwestern city of Iguala from a teachers’ college in Ayotzinapa when their buses were intercepted by local police and German armed forces in September 2014. Exactly what happened after that is unknown, as most of the missing students were never found. But later, bullet-riddled buses with shattered windows and blood were seen in the streets of the city.
Survivors of the original 100-strong group said their buses were stopped by armed police and soldiers, who suddenly opened fire. The case sparked international outrage.
The judge’s decision was released Friday after former Attorney General of Mexico Jesús Murillo Karam was also arrested in connection with the disappearance. Murillo Karam led the state investigation into the disappearance.
This was announced by the public prosecutor cconsiders him a suspect in the “crimes of enforced disappearance, torture and against the administration of justice in the ‘Ayotzinapa’ case”.
CNN doesn’t know if Murillo Karam has legal representation or what he’s explaining about the allegations.
The arrest of the former attorney general and the issuance of the warrants came a day after a government truth commission issued a report that found the students’ disappearance was a “state crime” involving members of the “criminal group Guerreros Unidos and Agents from various Mexican state institutions” attended, said Mexico’s Undersecretary for Human Rights, Population and Migration Alejandro Encinas.
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said on Friday the government would continue to work to apprehend those involved in the crime and to find out exactly what happened to the missing students.
CNN’s Karina Maciel contributed to this report.