Mexico City, February 2 (RHC-teleSUR) -- Maria de los Angeles Pineda and her family are accused of being the main heads of the gang that allegedly abducted the Ayotzinapa students.
The wife of jailed former Iguala Mayor Jose Luis Abarca, Maria de los Angeles Pineda, was allegedly the true head of the Guerreros Unidos drug cartel, which, according to Mexican Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam, is responsible for the enforced disappearance and murder of the 43 Ayotzinapa students.
Abarca and Pineda were detained last year months after they had fled the southern state of Guerrero, because they were being sought after by police for their responsibility Sept. 26 in the attack by local police on buses carrying Ayotzinapa students, killing three of them and three civilians, and the enforced disappearance of the 43.
Murillo Karam said his new revelations regarding Pineda or “The Boss of Iguala” as he called her, are based on investigations into her activities, which confirmed she head the United Warriors. “We carried out an investigation that led us all the way to prisons in the United States, where we were able to gather testimonies that link her directly and clearly as the head of the Guerreros Unidos, and that also link her father, mother and two brothers to the criminal group,” he said, adding that Abarca has been mentioned as the second in charge of the United Warriors.
Murillo Karam has been harshly criticized due to his statements last week regarding the Ayotzinapa case, which he said was closed and that based on scientific proof there was no doubt, according to him, that the 43 students had been murdered and then burnt to ashes.
The attorney general, however, has not revealed any conclusive evidence to back his statements other than assuring that at least three detained United Warriors members had reportedly confessed to having received the students from Iguala police and burning them.
The parents of the missing students lashed back at Murillo, saying he neglected to open different lines of investigation and that he lacked will to resolve a crime that more than likely involved many more government officials. Mexico’s National Commission for Human Rights also criticized Murillo’s decision to close the case.
Murillo Karam will try to convince a United Nations committee that the case was handled with absolute adherence to rule of law and that due diligence had been fulfilled.
In February, the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights (IACHR) will look into the Ayotzinapa case.
