Independent group rejects Mexican gov't case on 43 missing

An independent report presented Sunday dismantles the Mexican government's investigation into the disappearance of 43 teachers' college students, saying the prosecutor's contention that they were incinerated in a giant pyre never happened and fueling the anger of parents who nearly a year later still don't know what happened to their sons. Attorney General Arely Gomez, who was not in office during the initial investigation, said that in light of the report she would call for a new forensic review of the municipal garbage dump where the initial probe concluded the 43 were burned to ash beyond identification. And parents of the students demanded a meeting with President Enrique Pena Nieto, whose reputation and popularity has been undermined by the case. "We will not accept another lie from the government," said Blanca Nava Velez, mother of student Jorge Alvarez Nava. The government said the Sept. 26 attack was a case of mistaken identity. But the group of experts assembled by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights concluded in its report that it was violent and coordinated reaction to the students, who were hijacking buses for transportation to a demonstration and may have unknowingly interfered with a drug shipment on one of the buses. Iguala, the city in southern Guerrero state where that attacks took place, is known as a transport hub for heroin going to the United States, particularly Chicago, some of it by bus, the report said...more