Leader of the Guerreros Unidos confessed to ordering other members to kill the students left alive after 15 were sufficed to death by municipal police after being arrested.
By H. Nelson Goodson
Hispanic News Network U.S.A.
January 27, 2015
Mexico, D.F. - On Tuesday, Jesús Murillo Karam, the Federal Attorney General (PGRF) and Tomás Zero de Lucio, the director of the Federal Criminal Investigation Agency announced that the latest arrest on January 15 of Felipe Rodríguez Salgado, aka, "El Terco or El Cepillo," the cell leader of the Guerreros Unidos (GU) in Iguala, a criminal organization has resulted with additional information, which confirmed that the 43 Ayotzinapa missing students were tortured, executed and their bodies incinerated to eliminate any DNA evidence. Rodríguez Salgado's latest confession confirmed that the Ayotzinapa missing students were murdered by members of the GU, corrupt municipal police from both Iguala and Cocula under orders of Rodríguez Salgado himself, Iguala Mayor José Luis Abarca Velázquez, his wife, María de los Ángeles Pineda Villa and Sidronio Casarrubias Salgado. Abarca Velázquez was receiving payment to protect the Guerreros Unidos in Iguala and his wife had family ties to the criminal organization. Casarrubias Salgado was a leader of the GU in the state of Guerrero. Also, Cocula Mayor César Miguel Peñaloza Santana was taken into custody for his involvement in the massacre.
If convicted of all charges, kidnapping, organized crime, corruption, torture including murder, Rodríguez Salgado, Abarca Velázquez, Pineda Villa, Casarrubias Salgado and other suspects are facing up to 140 years each in a Mexican federal prison.
According to Rodríguez Salgado, on September 26, 2014 he received a call from Chucky, who told him that he was going to be delivered some packages and to go meet the delivery at La Loma de Coyote. The packages meant that rival criminal members from Los Rojos were captured and needed to be interrogated and then eliminated, according to Rodríguez Salgado.
Rodríguez Salgado said that when the delivery of the packages arrived that there were at least 15 to 18 students already dead, which was attributed to asphyxiation when they were tortured by Iguala police and other students were still alive. He also mentioned that about 38 to 41 students were delivered, which some students had their hands tied with rope and others were handcuffed. Rodríguez Salgado noted that between 30 to 35 municipal police officers brought the students in their vehicles and then transferred to several trucks and taken to the Cocula city dump where they were killed and burned.
Rodríguez Salgado ordered Patricio Reyes Landa, aka, "El Pato" to question the students and then execute them. El Pato questioned Bernardo Flores Alcaroz, aka, "El Cochiloco," "El Flaquito," and Miguel Ángel Hernández Martínez, aka, "El Patilludo" who were the aliases of some students. El Pato fatally shot the students in the back of the neck, according to Rodríguez Salgado.
The rest of the students who were still alive were questioned, tortured, executed and then burned at the city dump. Rodríguez Salgado ordered for the bodies to be stripped and cellular phones were found hidden in the groin of some students. The cell phones were also burned in the fire fueled by tires, plastic bottles, gasoline and diesel.
Rodríguez Salgado on September 27 returned to the city dump after the bodies were incinerated. He received an order by Gildardo López Astudillo, aka, "El Gil" to get rid of the evidence. El Gil had received orders from Iguala Mayor Abarca Velázquez to eliminate the missing Ayotzinapa students. Astudillo had texted Casarrubias Salgado, another leader of the GU that the students detained by corrupt Iguala and Cocula municipal police were members of a rival crime group called, "Los Rojos." Casarrubias Salgado had agreed with Mayor Abarca Velázquez to get rid of the students.
Rodríguez Salgado then ordered El Pato to buy some plastic bags to put the ashes in. The following men known as aliases, El Pato, Chequel, Wereke, Primo and Salgado filled the bags with ashes, bones and other fragments and threw them in the San Juan River where they were later recovered by Mexican authorities.
Karam said, that Rodríguez Salgado's confession collaborated what other suspects have confessed and had identified the three students with aliases that El Pato had executed.
De Lucio says, that 99 suspects involved in the disappearance and murders of the 43 Ayotzinapa students have been detained, some have been charged, others facing charges and that 386 statements including confessions from suspects and witnesses have been documented.
The investigation is ongoing to locate additional suspects that were directly and indirectly responsible for the mass murder of the students.
So far, only one the Ayotzinapa missing students has been identified by DNA, he was identified as Alexander Mora Venancio. The DNA evidence was recovered from a head bone fragment found in a black garbage bag recovered from the San Juan River where Rodríguez Salgado said the bags were discarded. In total, about 60,000 fragments of bones and other evidence was recovered from the city dump, according to Karam.
With Rodríguez Salgado's arrest and confession, the PGRF is concluding that most of the missing Ayotzinapa students were killed and burned in the Cocula city dump.
The parents, relatives and supporters of the missing Ayotzinapa students have continued their protests and mass marches against President Enrique Peña Nieto's narco-goverment. They claim that Peña Nieto's narco-goverment has covered up evidence of their own military and Federal Police involvement in the mass corruption of public officials, police and the murder of students in Guerrero.
Recently, one of the fathers of a missing Ayotzinapa student with the help of unidentified federal authorities traced the student's cell phone to the Mexican Infantry 27 Battalion military base in Iguala indicating the military and Federal Police were also involved in the mass murder case. The Guerrero State police and Federal Police allegedly were keeping surveillance on the Raúl Isidro Burgos School in Ayotzinapa and it was the authorities that alerted the Iguala Mayor and his wife that the students were headed to Iguala.
None of the students were associated to Los Rojos and there is no evidence to indicate that some students were members of a criminal organization as the PGRF attempts to portray.
The Guerrero Governor Ángel Aguirre Rivero was forced to resigned in 2014 after the Iguala and Cocula student massacre. It was later learned that Rivero's governorship campaign was also financed by the Guerreros Unidos and the PRD political party moved to oust Rivero from office, but he resigned. Rivero hasn't been implicated in the student massacre yet.
Currently, Felipe Flores Velázquez, Iguala's Secretary of Public Safety is being sought by federal Mexican authorities in connection with the student massacre.
The following video explains what happened to the 43 Ayotzinapa missing students (Spanish version), according to Mexico's Federal Attorney's General Office.
