Mexico Issues Arrest Warrant For Mayor, Wife Linked To Student-Teachers’ Disappearance

Oct 23, 2014 04:07 AM EDT

(Photo : REUTERS/Jorge Dan Lopez) People hold a Mexican flag during a demonstration to demand information for the 43 missing students of the Ayotzinapa teachers' training college, in Iguala, the southern Mexican state of Guerrero, October 22, 2014.

Mexico's chief prosecutor Jesús Murillo Karam issued a warrant for the arrest of Iguala Mayor Jose Luis Abarca and his wife who were believed to be the masterminds behind the disappearance of 43 student-teachers last month.

"We have issued warrants for the arrest of Iguala Mayor Jose Luis Abarca, his wife, María de los ángeles Pineda Villa and police chief Felipe Flores Velazquez, as probable masterminds of the events that occurred in Iguala on Sept. 26," Karam said during the media conference.

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Karam revealed in a news conference that local law enforcers detained the student-teachers after they angered the mayor for their prior protests against corrupt officials.

The local police then turned the students over to the Guerreros Unidos (United Warriors), a notorious local gang allegedly linked to Abarca.

Gang leader Sidronio Casarrubias Salgado then approved the group's disappearance in order to "defend his influence over the territory of Iguala," Attorney General Karam stated.

Casarrubias has already been arrested last week while the Iguala mayor and his wife are allegedly on the run as state law enforcers are yet to serve the warrant.

Meanwhile, Mexican authorities revealed an account of what might have occurred after police and radical students clashed on Sept. 26.

According to reports, the mayor and his spouse ordered the local police to attack the students from a left-leaning teaching school out of fear that they will disrupt her speech.

The September incident led to the death of one student who had been shot by local police officers, while others were detained and turned over to Guerreros Unidos.

The gang then mistook their captives to be members of an opposing criminal group, "Los Rojos" or "The Reds."

The search for the missing students still continue as their parents cling to the hope that they are still alive as DNA testing of the remains from excavated mass graves in Iguala revealed that none of the students are buried in nine mass grave sites.

TagsLaw Crime, Jesús Murillo Karam, Iguala