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 Attorney General Jesus Murillo said three detainees, caught a week
ago, admitted setting fire to a group of bodies in a dump near
Iguala in the state of Guerrero, where the trainee teachers went
missing on Sept. 26 after clashing with local police.
Then, the perpetrators set about removing all the evidence, Murillo
told a news conference, showing taped confessions of the detained,
photographs of where remains were found and video re-enactments of
how the bodies were moved.
"They didn't just burn the bodies with their clothes, they also
burned the clothes of those who participated," Murillo said, adding
the gang members spent over 12 hours torching the remains. "They
tried to erase every possible trace."
The government says police working with a local drug gang abducted
the students after the clashes. The kidnapping triggered mass
protests in much of the country and seriously undermined President
Enrique Pena Nieto's claims that Mexico has become safer on his
watch.
The disappearances have been the toughest challenge yet to face Pena
Nieto, who took office two years ago vowing to restore order in
Mexico, where about 100,000 people have died in violence linked to
organized crime since 2007.
 A grim-faced Pena Nieto said the findings had "shocked and offended"
Mexico and pledged to round up everyone involved.
"The investigations will be carried out to the full, all those
responsible will be punished under the law," he said.
Dozens of police are among 74 people held in the case.
The scandal has forced Pena Nieto to cut short a planned visit to
China next week, and angry relatives of the missing students said
the government had only made the announcement to clear the path for
the president to go.
"Pena Nieto should think hard about his trip," said Felipe de la
Cruz, father of one of the missing students. "As long as there is no
proof, our children are alive."
The confessions of the gang members pointed to the murder "of a
large number of people," Murillo said, showing a video of one
suspect saying the victims had said they were students.
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Identifying the remains, which were ground up after burning, was so
difficult that it was impossible to say when final results would
come in, Murillo said. But there was much evidence "that could
indicate it is (the students)," he added.
Teeth of victims found at the scene were so badly burned that they
virtually turned to dust upon contact, Murillo said, adding that the
remains would be sent to the University of Innsbruck in Austria for
final DNA identification.
The government would continue to view the students as missing until
their identities are confirmed, he added.
This week, Mexican police captured the former mayor of Iguala and
his wife, who the government suspects of being the probable
masterminds of the abductions.
Testimony from investigators suggested that the students, from an
all-male leftist college, had clashed with the mayor in the past and
that the city police had handed them over to local gangsters who
killed them.
The case has dented Pena Nieto's popularity and derailed his efforts
to turn public attention toward a string of reforms he passed in the
first part of his government, which he hopes will spur stronger
growth in Mexico's misfiring economy.
(Reporting by Lizbeth Diaz and Dave Graham; Editing by Simon
Gardner, James Dalgleish and Ken Wills)
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