Veteran human rights lawyer Omar Gómez Trejo won judicial approval for 83 arrest warrants, but the attorney general’s office got a judge to vacate 21 of them.
MEXICO CITY — The prosecutor in charge of Mexico’s most notorious human rights case has quit, throwing into disarray the eight-year-old investigation into the disappearance of 43 students while raising questions about the authorities’ willingness to take on politicians and the military.
The 43 students vanished on Sept. 26, 2014, after commandeering several buses to go to a protest rally — a common practice. They were last seen in custody of local police. The case unleashed a storm of protest in Mexico and abroad, as signs emerged that politicians, the police, the military and a local drug-trafficking gang were involved in the crime or a subsequent coverup. No one has been convicted.
The president says that the military is needed to fight heavily armed organized-crime groups. On Tuesday, he said that Gómez Trejo resigned “because he didn’t agree with the procedures followed to approve the arrest warrants.” The president added that he was in favor of the warrants.As a special prosecutor, Gómez Trejo enjoyed unusual autonomy, able to order wiretaps and investigate a wide range of crimes.