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Army documents place García Harfuch in Iguala at two meetings of authorities for the 'Ayotzinapa case'

2022-09-05T10:37:44.443Z


Minutes in the possession of EL PAÍS indicate the attendance of the then Gendarmerie commissioner at the meetings, on October 7 and 8, 2014. He maintains that since September of that year "he was already in Michoacán"


Documents from the Secretary of Defense place Omar García Harfuch in Iguala (Guerrero) on October 7 and 8, 2014, in the first known meetings between federal and state authorities in the

Ayotzinapa case.

García Harfuch then held a commissioner position in the Gendarmerie division of the Federal Police.

Before he had directed the Federal in Guerrero.

García Harfuch did not want to comment to this newspaper on these documents.

Questioned about his role in the case over the years, the current Mexico City police chief has repeated on several occasions that by the time the attack on the normalista students occurred, he had left Guerrero and "was already in Michoacán."

The documents, of which EL PAÍS has a copy, are two minutes of "authority meetings" held at the 27th Infantry Battalion, in Iguala.

By then, the extinct Attorney General's Office (PGR) had just taken over the investigation into the attack on normalist students and the disappearance of 43 of them, which occurred on the night of September 26 and the morning of September 27 in the municipality.

Tomás Zerón, director at the time of the Criminal Investigation Agency of the Attorney General's Office (AIC), led the meetings.

Fleeing to Israel, Zerón is today a fugitive from Mexican justice, which is looking for him for crimes of torture and forced disappearance, among others.

The presence of García Harfuch in Guerrero before, during or after the attack, the level of knowledge he had of what had happened and his relationship with the actions of those who were or had been his subordinates in Iguala are issues that have yet to be clarified.

Currently, three of the federal police officers who were on duty in the municipality during the attack are in prison.

According to the current administration of the Prosecutor's Office, the policemen participated in the disappearance of the boys in one of the scenes of the attack, the Palace of Justice.

Another unclarified issue is the possible participation of García Harfuch in more meetings in Iguala, before or after those of October 7 and 8, 2014. In the meeting of the 8th, for example, Zerón summons the participants to a new meeting two days later, to which, he says, the attorney general at the time, Jesús Murillo Karam, will also attend.

Doubts about García Harfuch's actions in the

Ayotzinapa case

transcend his presence in Iguala.

After the arrest of the alleged leader of Guerreros Unidos, Sidronio Casarrubias, just 10 days after these meetings were held, the authorities found a notebook on him, where the names and telephone numbers of officials appeared.

Among Casarrubias' contacts was García Harfuch.

In another matter, the protected witness Juan, part of Guerreros Unidos, has declared to the Prosecutor's Office that García Harfuch was on the payroll of the criminal group.

He “he received 200,000 dollars per month, since he was in charge of the Federal Police in the State of Guerrero.

He provided information on possible operations and facilitated the transfer of heroin, money and weapons, ”he said.

García Harfuch, who just two years ago survived an attack by another criminal group in the capital, has always denied any link with Guerreros Unidos.

A total of 18 people attended the "authorities meeting" on October 7, which began at 10:15 in the morning.

In addition to Zerón and Harfuch, there were General Alejandro Saavedra, head of the Army in Guerrero at the time, the State Attorney General, Iñaki Blanco, the head of the PGR Anti-Kidnapping Unit, Gualberto Ramírez, or the head of the PGR investigative police officer, Carlos Gómez Arrieta.

There was also Bernardo Cano, Zerón's assistant, who recently became a protected witness for the Attorney General's Office (FGR) for the case.

A week and a half ago, the Prosecutor's Office pointed out, based on Cano's testimony, that at the meeting on October 7, the "historical truth" began to be forged, a story disclosed by the Government of Enrique Peña Nieto (2012-2018) about the destiny of the normalistas, today rejected.

According to this version, the 43 were killed, burned in a garbage dump near Iguala, and their remains thrown into a river.

According to the Prosecutor's Office, Zerón and company constructed this story to quickly close the investigation and thus stop the "social outcry" that the attack had generated.

The agency aired Cano's testimony at the indictment hearing against Jesús Murillo Karam, attorney general at the time of the attack, Zerón's immediate superior.

Murillo is in prison, accused of forced disappearance, torture and obstruction of justice.

After the revelation of the Prosecutor's Office, García Harfuch published a message on his Twitter account, denying any participation in the construction of the historical truth.

“I reject the absurd version of having participated in a meeting to 'forge the historical truth.'

Hopefully those who are leading the investigations stop those who harmed young people instead of ruining the lives and reputations of those who do something for our country every day, ”he wrote.

Days before Murillo's hearing, the presidential commission investigating the

Ayotzinapa case

presented a report on its investigations.

The text concluded that the attack against the normalistas had been a state crime.

First, because of the participation of authorities from different levels of government in the attack and the disappearance of the boys.

Second, by the construction of a false story, the historical truth, thus hiding reality.

In the part that the report dedicates to this second point, the commission says that García Harfuch was an "operational link" to develop the investigation that concluded in the historical truth.

Omar García Harfuch in his office in Mexico City on July 29, 2022. Hector Guerrero

October 7: Covers

At the meeting on October 7, Zerón, master of ceremonies, asked state attorney Iñaki Blanco to give "a summary of the events in which municipal police officers and students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Normal School were involved."

Later, PGR personnel reported "the possible genesis of the problem, summarizing the background of the municipal president of Iguala, José Luis Abarca, and his wife, María de los Ángeles Pineda, in their family relationship with members of organized crime." .

Abarca and Pineda were the first suspects of ordering the attack against the normalistas.

In fact, the version of the Peña Nieto government was that the students had gone to Iguala to boycott an act by Pineda, a candidate to replace her husband as mayor.

The presidential commission has dismissed this accusation and assures that the boys went to Iguala to take buses to be transported, days later, to the commemorative march on October 2 in Mexico City.

Noted for their closeness to the criminal group that perpetrated the disappearance of the 43, Guerreros Unidos, the Abarca Pineda family fled Iguala a few days after the attack.

The authorities arrested them in early November 2014, in Mexico City.

The two are still in prison, although they are not formally accused of the attack on the students, but of organized crime.

Despite the above, the presidential commission now assumes that it was Abarca who gave the order to attack and disappear the boys.

The commission's hypothesis is that Guerreros Unidos used buses to transport drugs to the northern border.

With the seizure of buses, the students could have endangered a shipment of the criminal group and the Abarca Pineda would have ordered the attack to protect it.

The hypothesis of the drug-laden bus is based on the information collected at the time by the DEA on the Guerreros Unidos network in the United States, the reports of the group of experts that the IACHR has commissioned to Mexico to analyze the case, and the investigations of the commission itself.

The investigations into the transportation routes of Guerreros Unidos are also linked to the actions of the Federal Police on the night of the attack.

The commission has pointed out that elements of the corporation forced the boys to get off the bus that could have contained drugs, shortly before the Palace of Justice.

Then, they escorted the unit to the Iguala exit, now without passengers.

After the comment about the Abarca Pineda and the count of people who had already been detained in the case, Zerón asks that a working group be established to "specifically define the objectives to be sought, establish lines of action, define responsibilities for each of the participating areas and establish an intelligence table to establish (sic) the telephone numbers of the personnel involved and follow up on them.”

According to the document of the Secretary of Defense, the meeting would have concluded there.

At Murillo's hearing, the Prosecutor's Office said, however, that the meeting continued, but with fewer people.

According to the prosecutor, Zerón's assistant, Bernardo Cano, declared that the then governor of Guerrero, Ángel Aguirre, arrived at the military barracks.

Then, a good part of the attendees withdrew, leaving only the controls.

It is not known if García Harfuch remained at the meeting.

October 8: 14 students

The second meeting, held on October 8, had not been made public until now.

It takes place again in the 27th Infantry Battalion.

This time 13 people attend.

In addition to Zerón and García Harfuch, General Saavedra, the ministerial police officer Gómez Arrieta and authorities from the Government and the Guerrero Prosecutor's Office appear in the minutes again, in the case of the police chief, Leonardo Vázquez.

Zerón also directs the session.

The director of the AIC, head of the investigators on the ground, urges the federal and state attorney's offices to collect all the information on the events in order to have "the complete film."

He also asks his men to identify the telephone numbers of all those involved "for the corresponding follow-up."

He reports that Abarca's bank account is already "secured" and asks about the statements of 14 of the students, absent after the attack, which appeared over the hours.

The Guerrero attorney's office replies that they have not yet taken a statement and Zerón insists that it is a priority.

The investigative chief then asks that a statement also be taken from the workers of C-4, the monitoring center for the city's security cameras, since images have emerged in the media "about the possible arrest of the students."

He then orders the police to guard some graves found days ago near Iguala.

He is surely referring to those in Pueblo Viejo, on the outskirts of Iguala, where two days earlier the State Attorney's Office had recovered 28 bodies.

At that time it was thought that they could be from the missing students.

Finally, Zerón asks about Los Bélicos, an Iguala police shock group, which supposedly participated in the attack on the boys.

They inform him that "there is already a relationship" and that a "second relationship" is being worked on.

The director of the AIC suspends the meeting and calls a new one for the 10th. The attorney general, Murillo Karam, will attend that meeting, he says.

Neither in the minutes of the previous day's meeting nor in this one is any intervention by García Harfuch mentioned.

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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2022-09-05

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