Mayor of Mexican town linked with missing students charged
Cocula mayor Cesar Penaloza Santana charged in court with links to organised crime
Cesar Miguel Penaloza Santana was the mayor of Cocula when 43 students disappeared from nearby Iguala
A court in Mexico has charged the former mayor of Cocula, Cesar Penaloza Santana, with links to organised crime.
Cocula hit global headlines last year when its local police officers were linked to the disappearance of 43 students.
Penaloza Santana was arrested on 16 December on suspicion of having links with "a criminal group which operates in northern Guerrero state", the prosecutor's office said.
Officials did not give any further details, but local media report that a suspect in the students' disappearance had linked Mr Penaloza Santana to the Guerreros Unidos (United Warriors) drug gang,
The 43 students from a teacher training college went missing on 26 September 2014. A government investigation concluded that they were seized by municipal police officers, who handed them over to members of the Guerreros Unidos. The drug gang reportedly killed the students, after mistaking them for members of a rival gang.
Their bodies were then burned at a rubbish dump outside of Cocula. DNA tests have revealed that bone fragments police said they had found at the rubbish dump were those of one of the missing students, Alexander Mora.
However, an independent investigation into the students' disappearance later rejected the government's version of events.
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights said in September that it had found no evidence that the bodies were incinerated.
It urged the government to continue looking for the missing students but did not offer any further clues as to what might have become of them.
