Bodies found in mass graves not those of missing Mexican students

Mexico City, Oct 15 (EFE).- Mexican Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam has announced that 28 burned dead bodies found in five graves near Iguala in the southern state of Guerrero were not of the 43 students who went missing three weeks ago.

At a press conference Tuesday, Murillo said that the bodies found in the first set of mass graves did not correspond to the students from Ayotzinapa teacher training school who disappeared after an altercation with police caused six deaths.

Murillo said that the authorities were able to locate the second set of mass graves from information gleaned from the interrogations of people detained for suspected involvement in the case.

After no bodies were found in those graves, Murillo announced that they have found a third set of graves which were being excavated.

The attorney general also said that his office would request an arrest warrant for Iguala Mayor José Luis Covers and his Public Security Secretary Felipe Flores, who have been missing since the events.

On September 26, Iguala police opened fire on a group of teacher trainees who were hijacking buses, killing six people and wounding 25. After the shootings, at least 43 students were taken away by the police and they have not been seen since.

"The intention is to continue with the investigation and arrest the remaining people, but the most important thing is to identify and arrest the masterminds," Murillo said.

He stressed that authorities had already arrested most of the people believed responsible, but they wanted to find out who ordered it.

According to Murillo, new lines of investigation were bringing them closer to that end.

At the same press conference, Criminal Investigation Agency Director Tomas Zeron de Lucio said that the arrest of 14 police officers from the nearby town of Cocula was linked to the case of the missing students.

He said that 14 policemen had confessed to participating in the kidnapping of the students and turning them over to a criminal gang known as Guerrero Unidos.

Last week, federal security forces took control of Iguala to help in the search for the students and to further the probe into who was responsible.

A total of 50 people have been arrested so far in the investigation, most of them Iguala policemen.