Mexico arrests cartel figure in student kidnapping case

Mexican authorities confirmed on Thursday that they detained a high-ranking drug cartel member, saying he was the "intellectual" mind behind last year's kidnapping and disappearance of 43 college students in the southern state of Guerrero.

Gildardo Lopez Astudillo was arrested late on Wednesday in the city of Taxco on drug, extortion and organized crime offenses. Last November, Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam said Lopez Astudillo informed Sidronio Casarrubias Salgado, leader of the Guerreros Unidos drug gang, that rivals were stirring up trouble on their turf in the city of Iguala. His boss then allegedly told Lopez Astudillo to do whatever it took to defend their area of influence.

The 43 teaching students, who were part of a group protesting discriminatory hiring practices in September 2014, were then illegally detained by Iguala local police. The corrupt police in turn handed them over to Guerreros Unidos, according to federal authorities. The students were killed and, according to the government's investigation, it was Lopez Astudillo who gave the order to have their bodies incinerated in a garbage dump.

Lopez Astudillo's capture has given rise to hope that more details will be revealed about the incident which sparked an international outcry and has left the students' parents without answers more than a year after the fact.

International experts have pointed out a few flaws in the government's narrative, however. A report released earlier this month argued that there is no evidence the students' bodies were incinerated in Cocula, near Iguala.

The apparent massacre of poor, rural students has caused major political problems for Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, who came to power in 2012 vowing to stamp out drug-related violence.

es/sms (AP, Reuters)