A former Mexican mayor involved in the disappearance of students in 2014 has been sentenced to 92 years in prison

A former mayor of the Mexican municipality of Iguala was sentenced to 92 years in prison for the kidnapping of six people in 2013, a fact that adds to his own alleged responsibility for the disappearance of 43 Ayotzinapa students in 2014, legal sources cited.

José Luis Abarca, 62, was found guilty of kidnapping six social leaders in May 2013 in the municipality of Iguala (in the southern state of Guerrero). Among these people was Arturo Hernández Cardona, leader of a peasant organization, who was found dead months later.

Abarca must also pay a fine of 920,700 pesos (about $52,000).

The politician was mayor of Iguala when the disappearance of the 43 students of the rural school of Ayotzinapabetween 26 and 27 September 2014, one of the worst cases of human rights violations to occur in Mexico, which drew widespread international condemnation.

Abarca has been on the run from justice since the crisis erupted and was arrested in November 2014 with his wife in a house in Iztapalapa.

The former mayor was arrested for alleged responsibility for the disappearance of students and is currently in prison in the central state of Mexico.

The case of the 43 missing teenagers

The students disappeared when they tried to hijack buses to travel to Mexico City and participate in rallies commemorating the Tlatelolco massacre in 1968.

The young men were arrested by policemen in collusion with drug traffickers from the Guerreros Unidos cartel, who murdered them by mistaking them for members of a rival gang, according to the official version at the time.

But a commission of the current government that investigated the case claims that the criminals – in complicity with the police and military – They were trying to recover the drugs hidden in one of the buses, without the students knowing of its existence.

Only the remains of three of the victims have been identified so far.