University Experts: Normalistas Were Not Burned In Cocula Landfill

 Borderland Beat posted and Translated by Pepe Republished from Proceso

MEXICO, DF (appro). Researchers at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and University Autónoma Metropolitana (UAM) today put into question the version of the Attorney General's Office on the fate of missing Ayotzinapa normalistas.

Bone fragment identified

At a press conference (PGR) at the headquarters of the National Center for Social Communication (Cencos), they ensured that the official hypothesis that the 43 students were burned is unscientific and, moreover, stated that the bone fragments which allowed experts from Austria to identify Alexander Mora, one of the alleged victims, came from a different location than the San Juan river, the alleged location where the ashes were thrown.

Jorge Antonio Montemayor Aldrete, from the Institute of Physics at UNAM, and Pablo Ugalde Vélez, a researcher at UAM Azcapotzalco, declared it "impossible" the hypothesis presented by the Attorney General of the Republic, Jesús Murillo Karam, based on scientific expertise and the review of public statements and photographs of Cocula dump.

The reasonings of scientists are compatible with considerations of fire and explosives expert, Alfonso Palacios Blanco, and forensic anthropologist at the UNAM, Lorena Valencia Caballero, interviewed by reporter Patricia Dávila and whose statements were published in Proceso on the 16th of November.

To Montemayor Aldrete "the official version is not supported by facts, but rather is a fantasy" created by Murillo Karam. The act of  destroying the bodies as described by the prosecutor needed, he said, the participation of "many more than three to 15 people" as the investigation says, and there only three detainees that allegedly took part in the destruction of the bodies.

The researcher at the Institute of Physics said that the remains of Alexander Mora were not burned at the dump because the circumstances in which the remains were found are more compatible with "acts and/or phenomena physical or from natural chemicals."

According to investigators, the first element that makes unlikely the official version is that the 43 bodies, "which are not balls or cylinders," supposedly reached the bottom of the dump as the accused describe, because the landfill "is not a slide and there's no report of them enclosing the bodies somehow to get them to roll to the bottom of the landfill," Montemayor said.

The document signed by Montemayor and Ugalde indicates that "in places of the greatest free fall, the bodies should have left traces of skin, blood and bones or pieces of clothing should have attached to articles in the landfill,  which would serve as sources of genetic material for identification."

About the source of the fire, their report finds that, to cremate 43 bodies, "33 tons of tree trunks, four inches in diameter," would be needed.  And this fire would have left residues "of bones and ashes of wood that would weigh about 700 pounds, of which about 250 pounds would correspond to human remains," which would "pack 12 bags with about 60 pounds each of waste combustion and mixed human remains."

burning tires produces very much smoke

If they had used tires to burn the students and "reduce the residues to the state as shown by the PGR, and supposedly as stated by the defendants, about 1000 passenger car tires would be required."

Montemayor said a human pyre the size that PGR said occurred, "would have been seen 5 or 6 miles away" and would have left the fire area with "blackened stones, broken by heat, and puddles of grease," of which, up to now he stressed, no evidence exists.

UAM researcher Pablo Ugalde, insisted that, based on the scientific evidence and understanding, "we can say that the hypothesis of the PGR is impossible, and it does not require a visit to the scene, only mathematical calculations based on the slope of the landfill to conclude it was not possible that the bodies would roll to the bottom of the dump."

He noted that the statements of Murillo Karam that the flames reached a temperature of 1,600 degrees Celsius "is disproved when you see pictures where remains of wires are seen, as steel melts at 1,600 degrees and if there were wires, that means the temperature did not reach that high."

The experts reported that the study will be sent to the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) and the UN.

The question of where the bone remains of Alexander were found was initiated by the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team (EAAF). In a statement released four days ago, they clarified that none of its members "witnessed the discovery of the fragment which culminated in the identification."