Mexico's Army Chief Luis Sandoval Wednesday promised to collaborate with authorities after leaked information connecting the military to the disappearance of 43 Ayotzinapa students in 2014.
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"We are in the obligation to inform. The Army has collaborated with authorities historically. We have never tried to hide crimes," Sandoval assured.
On Wednesday, a witness said that the military took part in a joint operation with police and hitmen to arrest the 43 youths in the 27th Infantry Battalion of Iguala city, in Guerrero Department.
The witness identified as "Juan" is the alleged leader of the United Warriors cartel, the criminal group that disappeared the students after they were interrogated at the Battalion on Sep. 26, 2014.
"Some of them were already dead when the military handed them over," he said during an interrogation conducted by the Attorney General's Office (FGR).
Juan pointed out that United Warriors were looking for criminals from a rival cartel who owed it money. "But the rivals got mixed up with the students, who were protesting in Iguala," he said while assuring that 30 people picked randomly were also kidnapped and disappeared that day.
According to former President Enrique Peña Nieto's government (2012-2018), the crime was carried out by a group of Iguala's corrupt police officers.
"With the local police's help, United Warriors murdered and incinerated them in a Cocula landfill. Afterward, the group dumped their remains in a river," the former Mexican administration stated.
However, an investigation carried out by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) proved otherwise.
"State police coordinated with drug traffickers staged evidence at the Cocula dump for federal authorities to give quick results," the IACHR revealed.