The group of experts knocks down a crucial part of the evidence of the presidential report of the ‘Ayotzinapa case’

The group of experts that independently investigates the Ayotzinapa case, the GIEI, has discarded a crucial part of the evidence in the report of the presidential commission, created in 2018 to participate in the investigations. In August, the commission presented a document indicating the possible fate of the normalista students who disappeared in 2014, partially based on 467 screenshots of alleged members of the Iguala criminal network. The Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (GIEI) said this Monday that “it is not possible to guarantee the originality of the messages.”

As EL PAÍS anticipated this Sunday, in some cases, the problem with the screenshots is sometimes the manner of writing of the alleged criminals, different from that shown by other evidence, mainly the monitoring of the Guerreros Unidos criminal group and its henchmen that carried out by the DEA in those years. In other cases, the WhatsApp version of the photos of the messages does not coincide with the one that existed then. In yet others, the capture data did not coincide with the dates of the messages.

In its last joint press appearance, the GIEI, which is now committed to becoming a “monitoring mechanism” made up of two of its four experts, has insisted on separating the work of the commission, from which the third leg has carried out these years investigation, the special unit for the case of the Attorney General of the Republic (FGR). The group has insisted that the unit has not used information from the commission’s report and therefore their arrests are not in jeopardy.

The message from the GIEI was relevant due to the confusion generated in recent weeks, based on the latest battery of arrest warrants obtained by the Prosecutor’s Office, 83 in total, 20 against Army personnel. Military detainees and their lawyers have tried to spread the idea that their arrest was based on the commission’s report, questioned by the inconsistency of the 467 screenshots.

Experts have criticized the movements of the head of the FGR these months, Alejandro Gertz, who forced the departure of the head of the agency’s unit for the Ayotzinapa case, Omar Gómez Trejo. In August, the attorney general removed Gómez Trejo from the unit, delegating part of his work to the Internal Affairs Prosecutor’s Office, which in addition to opening an internal investigation – a measure of pressure, according to the GIEI – canceled part of the 83 arrest warrants capture, most against military.

Until today, the FGR has not explained the reason for canceling the orders, but the GIEI and the lawyers of the families of the 43 disappeared students have criticized the interference of both Gertz and the president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, whose insistence on accelerating research has generated imbalances and mistrust between groups of researchers. The last consequence, the partition of the GIEI, as already happened in the previous government.

The clearest in this regard this Monday has been one of the members of the GIEI who leaves the group, the Chilean lawyer Francisco Cox: “Are they asking why we are leaving? First, no information was shared with the GIEI”, he has said, referring to the 467 screenshots, which the commission presented to families and experts the same day they were made public, without any verification.

Cox has singled out Gertz. “Another reason is the intervention of the attorney general in the UEILCA”, the unit of the dependency for the Ayotzinapa case. “And then there was a meeting to make decisions regarding the case, as López Obrador said.” Even so, the GIEI has softened its scolding of the commission and its manager, Alejandro Encinas, criticized by columnists and commentators in the country, even compared to Tomás Zerón or Jesús Murillo, the two in charge of the case with Peña Nieto, today accused of different crimes.

The fiasco of the messages has nothing to do with the historical truth, Guatemalan Claudia Paz has said, referring to the narrative of Zerón and Murillo, who indicated that the 43 were burned in a garbage dump, a story elaborated through the torture of dozens of arrested. “We have had access to all the captures and thanks to that we have been able to carry out the expert opinion. It is true that we met the chats late, but then we had access. And certainly no one has been tortured to fabricate anything.”

One of the experts who remains, the Colombian Ángela Buitrago, has warned of the setback caused by the departure of Gómez Trejo, who had been on the case since June 2019, and the arrival of a new head of the UEILCA, Rosendo Gómez Piedra. , totally oblivious to the investigations until two weeks ago. In mid-November, she has said, is the deadline to present additional evidence against detainees and defendants in August, part of the group of 83.

Buitrago has also insisted that the Army has still not delivered important information for the case, documents that reflect the monitoring of alleged members of the Iguala criminal network at the time of the attack, the night of September 26 and the early morning of September 27, 2014. , and on subsequent days.

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