[JURIST] Three men were arrested on Saturday for their possible connection to the disappearance of 43 Mexican students in September 2014. Mexican authorities claim [AP report] the suspects are members of Guerreros Unidos [Insight Crime backgrounder], a local drug cartel that presumably received and murdered the missing students following their protest and arrest. One of the men is also a prime suspect in the murder of Julio César Mondragon, a student whose body was found mutilated the morning after the event. Currently, 113 people have been arrested in the ongoing investigation, including 44 police officers and the former mayor of Iguala.

The disappearance of the 43 students has drawn widespread condemnation of the security situation in Mexico. In November Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission criticized [JURIST report] the Mexican Attorney General’s Office and other government offices involved in the investigation for failing to comply with its recommendations. In October Attorney General Arely Gomez Gonzalez released [JURIST report] of a 54,000 page file [text, PDF, in Spanish] detailing the Mexican government’s investigation into the “Missing 43.” Gonzalez provided the partially-redacted document following repeated calls by Mexico’s National Transparency Institute for its release. Also in October, in response to the security situation and on his visit to Mexico, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein urged the Mexican government to cease using their military as law enforcement and replace the current force with well-trained police officers [JURIST report]. The UN official also addressed the need to continue the investigation into the 2014 disappearance of the “Missing 43.” Pressure on the Mexican government has also led to President Enrique Peña Nieto’s pledge to appoint a special prosecutor [JURIST report] to investigate the case of the “Missing 43.” The disappearance of the 43 students sparked international outrage [Al Jazeera report] and the official government report concludes that the students were all killed [JURIST report] after being seized by police.