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| In this Aug. 8, 2015 photo, Afrodita Mondragon, mother of slain student Julio Cesar Mondragon, covers her face in grief as she speaks inside her home in San Miguel Tecomatlan, a rural town in the hills of Mexico state. Unlike the families of the 43 students who disappeared a year ago, Julio's loved ones were left with a body to bury. But there is little comfort in that, because his corpse bore witness to the horror of his final moments. His autopsy showed several skull fractures and other injuries and internal bleeding to his body consistent with torture. His face had been flayed, a tactic often used by the drug cartels to incite terror and send a message. |
SAN MIGUEL
TECOMATLAN, Mexico (AP) -- Unlike the families of the 43 students
who disappeared a year ago, Julio Cesar Mondragon's loved ones were left
with a body to bury. But there is little comfort in that, because
Mondragon's corpse bore witness to the horror of his final moments.
His
autopsy showed several skull fractures, internal bleeding and other
injuries consistent with torture. His face had been flayed, a tactic
often used by the drug cartels to incite terror. Photos of his bloody
skull were uploaded to the Internet.
International
attention has been focused on the 43 students who vanished a year ago
Saturday, but six others died at the hands of police in those hours,
including Mondragon, a 22-year-old father of girl who is now 1 year old.
According to an independent group of experts, the disappearances and
the killings were the result of a long, coordinated attack against
students from the Raul Isidro Burgos Rural Normal School of Ayotzinapa
who had come to the southern city of Iguala to commandeer buses for a
protest.
But the events of last Sept. 26 were
far from isolated. Some 25,000 people have been reported missing in
Mexico since 2007, and hundreds from the Iguala area in the last year
alone. The disappearance of the students has drawn attention to others
who have been lost, as well as brutal drug cartels, official corruption,
government indifference and languishing legal cases.
According
to Mexico's former attorney general, the 43 disappeared in an attack by
police and the Guerreros Unidos drug gang because they were mistaken
for rival gang members. The attorney general said last November they
were killed and burned to ash in a giant pyre in the nearby Cocula
garbage dump.
The independent experts
assembled by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights took apart
that version earlier this month, saying authorities knew who the
students were from the minute they headed for Iguala, and at the very
least did nothing to stop the attacks.
They
say the funeral pyre simply didn't happen, and suggest the attack
occurred because students unknowingly hijacked a bus carrying illegal
drugs or money. Iguala is known as a transit hub for heroin going to the
United States.
Families say the judicial
neglect extends to Mondragon and five others killed that night. His
fellow students Daniel Solis and Julio Cesar Ramirez were shot dead at
close range. Driver Victor Manuel Lugo Ortiz and David Jose Garcia
Evangelista, 15, died when police fired at a soccer team bus. Blanca
Montiel, 40, was killed by stray gunfire while riding in a taxi.
Mondragon
had been on one of the buses when it was attacked, then later showed up
at a news conference the students called at 12:30 a.m. amid the mayhem.
He fled when police opened fire. Witnesses said shortly after they last
saw him, they heard screams from someone they assumed had been
detained. About 6 a.m., soldiers found his body less than a mile
(kilometer) from where he disappeared.
Though
Mondragon's autopsy points to torture, that doesn't appear in the court
records. A report by a military unit at the scene said his face had been
peeled off with a knife. But the autopsy says it could have been done
by an animal after the body was dumped. His family calls that conclusion
"a mockery."
Mondragon's case could provide
clues to who was behind the attack, according to the commission. But it
languishes in three separate court files. Mondragon's body will be
exhumed for a new autopsy.
The former mayor of
Iguala, Jose Luis Abarca, is among 28 people charged with his killing.
Authorities say the mayor was the one who ordered the attacks. But
Sayuri Herrera, lawyer for the Mondragon family, said it would be easy
for any defense attorney to get the charges thrown out because the
shabby investigative work and foggy charges filed by prosecutors could
weaken the case. Charges have already been dropped against one police
officer, who remains jailed for the missing 43.
"There's not even clarity in the accusations," said Herrera.
Mondragon's
family gathers most Saturdays at the large table in his uncle
Cuitlahuac's modest concrete home, sometimes to meet with Herrera,
sometimes for psychological counseling, always to plot a path to
justice.
"Here we all pretend to be strong," said Lenin Mondragon, 22, who has his brother's eyes, now filled with sadness.
They
want the case taken up by federal prosecutors. The Inter-American
Commission's experts also say the six murders should be part of the
federal case of the 43 because they complete the picture of what
happened that night.
The attorney general's
office has refused that approach. It also declined for weeks to answer
questions about the case from The Associated Press, although on Friday,
Eber Betanzos, deputy attorney general for human rights, said the office
was about to decide whether it would take over the investigation from
state prosecutors. He also said his office will be present for
Mondragon's exhumation.
The case remains with
state prosecutors in Guerrero, where a lack of resources and expertise
make it even less likely that justice will be served.
Mondragon
was a little older than his other first-year classmates because he had
passed through several normal schools before enrolling in Ayotzinapa. He
liked to challenge the teachers, Cuitlahuac Mondragon said. He also
taught reading and writing to poor families in San Miguel Tecomatlan, a
rural town in the hills of Mexico state.
Julio's
mother, Afrodita Mondragon, likes to look at his Facebook profile,
though in wading through the Internet she is careful not to land on the
photos of a skull when she searches his name.
She is torn between agitating for justice and focusing on her youngest, who is only 3 years old.
"The
only thing we ask for is the truth," his uncle said. "The government is
betting that this will all be forgotten, and we're betting on justice."
