“Morogris” for Borderland Beat
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| Gualberto Ramírez Gutiérrez |
A federal judge charged Gualberto Ramirez Gutierrez, the former head of Mexico’s Specialized Attorney’s Office for Organized Crime (SEIDO), for torture and forced disappearance in the notorious 43 missing students case of Ayotzinapa, Guerrero.
The presiding judge Juan José Hernández Leyva, of Reclusorio Sur penitentiary, determined that Ramírez Gutiérrez was a co-perpetrator of criminal abuses against Felipe Rodríguez Salgado (alias “El Cepillo” or “El Terco”), identified as an alleged gang member of Guerreros Unidos.
Mexican prosecutors say that in January 2015 Ramirez Gutierrez was present during an interrogation and torture session investigators conducted to El Cepillo, who played a role in the disappearance of the 43 students.
According to prosecutors, Tomás Zerón, former head of the Criminal Investigation Agency (AIC), and Ignacio Mendoza Gandaria, director of the Intelligence and National Security Center (CISEN), also participated in this interrogation.
It is believed that Ramirez Gutierrez’s ordered the torture so that El Cepillo would confess a distorted version of the events that some government officials favored.
Ramirez Gutierrez was accused of torture in October 2019 by federal agents, but he was finally arrested on June 2023. There have been over 100 arrests warrants issued against people involved in the Ayotzinapa case in the past five years. Many of them are currently at large.
Background
According to Mexican government’s version of the story, referred by the former FGR chief as the Verdad Historica (English: Historic Truth), Guerreros Unidos gang members kidnapped and killed the students in September 2014 after they mistook them for rival gangsters.
The incident started when the students hijacked several buses in the area before a protest, a tradition that had long been practiced by the school and tolerated by some of the bus companies.
As they traveled back from Iguala to Ayotzinapa, where the school is based, they were intercepted by the police. The incident quickly devolved into a chaotic night that involved law enforcement and gangsters.
After a long standoff with the police, several students were arrested and reportedly handed over to Guerreros Unidos.
By dawn the next morning, 6 students were confirmed dead in Iguala, dozens more were wounded. But 43 more had vanished.
The government alleges that the students were killed and their bodies were then disposed in a garbage dump and burned in a large fire. However, several independent investigations have cast doubts on the official report’s findings.
Independent investigators said that the investigation was “deeply flawed”, starting by the fact that many of the detainees were confirmed to have been tortured to confess.
In addition, they claimed to have satellite images on the day of the students’ disappearance that showed there had been no fire that night. Critics say that the remains of the first two students identified were found at the rubbish dump in question or planted there by authorities.