“For us it is meaningful and has positive elements that will help us learn the truth and obtain justice,” the families said in a statement released Friday.
The fate of the students is an enduring mystery that remains unsolved despite years of scrutiny and international interest.
The students were visiting the southwestern city of Iguala from a university in Ayotzinapa when their buses were intercepted by local police and federal military forces in September 2014.
What exactly happened after that, and why, remains unknown. However, survivors of the original group of 100 students said their buses had been stopped and shot at by armed police officers and soldiers. Bulleted buses were later found on city streets, with broken windows and blood.
About 43 students later disappeared.
A government report last week referred to the incident as a “state crime,” based on thousands of documents, text messages, phone records, witnesses and other forms of evidence.
Jesús Murillo Karam, the former attorney general of Mexico, was arrested a day after the report came to light — and accused by the prosecution of being suspected of “crimes of forced disappearance, torture and against the administration of justice “.
He had led the state’s investigation into the students’ disappearances but was criticized by then-President Enrique Peña Nieto for his lack of transparency in the handling of the matter.
The parents of the 43 welcomed their arrest.
“Today, the judge handling the case agrees with us. Murillo Karam carried out a dubious, irregular investigation plagued with torture, manipulation and fabrication of evidence, thus constructing a lie that prevented us from knowing the whereabouts of our children,” the parents’ joint statement said.
“We cannot give up the fight until we have full proof of his whereabouts. It will be painful for our families to know his fate, especially if he is lifeless, but if we are given scientific and true proof, we will go home and cry. So far, we have no such evidence. So our demands and struggle continue.”
CNNE’s Fidel Gutiérrez contributed to the report.