Fugitive ex-official implicates Mexican ex-president, others in tale spun of student disappearances

MEXICO CITY (AP) — A former head of investigations for Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office told officials investigating the 2014 disappearance of 43 students that the so-called “historic truth” presented to the public weeks later was cooked up by the highest ranking officials in the Mexican government. Tomás Zerón, a fugitive now in Israel, says the meetings were presided over by then-President Enrique Peña Nieto, according to a report by the independent journalism collective Fabrica de Periodismo. Zerón was responding to a lengthy questionnaire sent by Mexico’s top human rights official in 2022. Fabrica de Periodismo obtained the questionnaire under a freedom of information request.