New probe ordered into 2014 Mexican massacre of 43 students

Mexico City, June 5 (IANS) A Mexican collegiate court has ordered a truth commission to be created to investigate the massacre of 43 students in Guerrero in 2014.

The 43 victims, all enrolled at a teachers' college in Ayotzinapa were travelling by bus when they were intercepted, abducted and tortured by police in Iguala on September 26.

With details of the case remaining obscure, a three-judge panel unanimously agreed on Monday that the Attorney General's Office (PGR) failed to carry out a "rapid, effective, independent and impartial" probe.

The court said given the serious human rights violations, forced disappearance and extrajudicial executions, and the role of three levels of government, it deemed it necessary to order the creation of the truth commission.

The Truth and Justice Investigation Commission will comprise victims' kin, the National Human Rights Commission and the Public Ministry of the PGR, Xinhua news agency reported.

The prior probe concluded that police had mistaken the students for members of a criminal gang, and handed them over to a rival gang to kill them and dispose of the bodies, which have never been found.

The bodies were feared to have been burnt in a garbage dump.

Mexican authorities say they have arrested more than 130 suspects, including Iguala's mayor and his wife, who were believed to have ordered the police officers to intercept the students.