Mexico seeks extradition of former official in Israel over 2014 student disappearance

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum announced Tuesday that her administration is seeking the extradition of Tomas Zeron de Lucio, a former top security official linked to the disappearance of 43 students who is living in self-exile in Israel.

In 2014, 43 students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers' College in Iguala, Guerrero were disappeared by local police and criminal groups, allegedly with the backing and protection of high-ranking Mexican government figures, including military officers and intelligence and security officials, according to the Presidential Commission for Truth and Access to Justice in the Ayotzinapa Case.

From the disappearance of the students until 2020, the government maintained that the attack had been carried out exclusively by criminal groups, a fabricated account promoted by the administration of former President Enrique Pena Nieto and challenged by the government of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who had promised to solve the case if he won the 2018 elections.

Zeron de Lucia, then director of the now-defunct Criminal Investigation Agency (AIC), was key to efforts to protect government officials as well as police and military personnel involved in the crime.

In 2020, Mexico's Attorney General's Office issued an arrest warrant against him for the crimes of enforced disappearance and torture after the official version fabricated during the Pena Nieto administration was refuted.

The disgraced former criminal intelligence chief relocated to Israel in 2019, where he has lived ever since.

During her morning press conference following the 12th anniversary of the mass disappearance of the students on Sept. 26, President Sheinbaum announced that her government had made changes within Mexico's Attorney General's Office to secure Zeron's extradition, a request that has gone unaddressed since 2020.

"And in the case of extraditions, the Attorney General's Office has, at this time, even changed personnel within the office to accelerate all extradition processes, both from the United States and from Israel, which is where Tomas Zeron is. And work is underway on this," she said.

Although the Mexican government has offered Zeron immunity in exchange for his cooperation, he has remained in self-exile in Israel, while the lack of an extradition treaty between the two countries has stalled the Mexican government's requests.

Sheinbaum said she sent a letter directly to Israeli President Isaac Herzog requesting Zeron's extradition to no avail.

"He replied to us that he had raised this with the judiciary but that it fell outside the scope of his authority," she said.

According to investigations carried out following the rise of the ruling Morena Party, which culminated in its historic landslide victory during the 2018 general elections, Zeron as head of the AIC ordered the fabrication of evidence and the torture of witnesses to extract false testimonies that upheld the official version of events at the time, holding the criminal syndicate Guerreros Unidos as the sole perpetrator while shielding government officials.

Zeron's extradition would mark a major accomplishment in Sheinbaum's handling of the case, which so far has alienated the relatives of the 43 students.

The parents of the Ayotzinapa victims have maintained that the government of Lopez Obrador and the current Sheinbaum administration have failed to fulfill their promises to clarify the case, arguing that protection continues to be afforded to senior military commanders allegedly involved in the state crime.

Lopez Obrador and Sheinbaum have maintained the innocence of the armed forces, despite extensive evidence gathered by independent investigative groups documenting that the military had infiltrated a soldier into the ranks of the students to monitor them and that military troops dressed in civilian clothing were surveilling the students before their disappearance.

Twelve years after the mass disappearance, the parents still do not know the whereabouts of their children, the reasons for their disappearance or who ordered the attack.