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Mexico is seeking the extradition of former senior security official Tomás Zerón de Lucio from Israel over the 2014 disappearance of 43 students, President Claudia Sheinbaum said on Tuesday, according to the source report.
The students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers’ College in Guerrero state disappeared in the city of Iguala after being detained by local police and criminal groups. Mexico’s Presidential Commission for Truth and Access to Justice in the Ayotzinapa Case said the attack was allegedly carried out with the backing or protection of senior government figures, including military, intelligence and security officials.
Zerón, who headed Mexico’s now-defunct Criminal Investigation Agency, was accused of helping protect officials, police and military personnel allegedly involved in the case. In 2020, Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office issued an arrest warrant for him on charges including enforced disappearance and torture.
Mexico seeks to accelerate extradition process
Zerón moved to Israel in 2019 and has lived there since. Mexico’s extradition requests have remained unresolved, in part because the two countries do not have an extradition treaty.
Speaking at a morning press conference after the 12th anniversary of the students’ disappearance on Sept. 26, Sheinbaum said changes had been made within the Attorney General’s Office to speed up extradition procedures involving the United States and Israel.
“In the case of extraditions, the Attorney General’s Office has, at this time, even changed personnel within the office to accelerate all extradition processes, both from the United States and from Israel, which is where Tomás Zerón is,” she said. “Work is underway on this.”
Sheinbaum also said she had sent a letter directly to Israeli President Isaac Herzog requesting Zerón’s extradition. Herzog replied that he had referred the matter to the judiciary but that it was outside his authority, she said.
Former official accused of fabricating evidence
Investigations conducted after the Morena party came to power have accused Zerón of ordering the fabrication of evidence and the torture of witnesses to obtain false statements. The alleged aim was to support the previous government’s account that the Guerreros Unidos criminal group was solely responsible for the students’ disappearance while shielding government officials.
The administration of former President Enrique Peña Nieto maintained until 2020 that the attack had been carried out exclusively by criminal groups. That account was challenged by the government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who had pledged to resolve the case after winning the 2018 election.
Mexico has offered Zerón immunity in exchange for his cooperation, but he has remained in Israel.
Families continue to demand answers
An extradition would represent a significant development in Sheinbaum’s handling of the case, which has strained relations with the families of the missing students.
The families say both López Obrador’s government and Sheinbaum’s administration have failed to fulfil promises to clarify what happened. They argue that senior military commanders allegedly involved in the crime continue to receive protection.
López Obrador and Sheinbaum have defended the armed forces’ innocence despite evidence gathered by independent investigative groups. Those investigations documented that the military had placed a soldier among the students to monitor them and that troops in civilian clothing had surveilled them before their disappearance.
Twelve years after the mass disappearance, the families still do not know where their children are, why they disappeared or who ordered the attack.
