Police official arrested in students’ disappearance

A students carries a photos of missing students of the Ayotzinapa rural teachers college pinned on his shirt, during a protest by the parents and classmates of the 43 missing students when they erected a monument in their memory to mark the seventh month of their disappearance in Mexico City, Sunday, April 26, 2015. Students, family members and friends erected the monument with the number 43 painted in red in the middle of one of Mexico City’s busiest thoroughfares. Federal investigators said the students died at the hands of organized crime with the aid of corrupt local authorities. AP

MEXICO CITY — Mexican authorities say they have captured a former police official implicated in the disappearance of 43 teachers’ college students last year.

A government statement says Francisco Salgado Valladares had been hiding in the homes of relatives in the states of Guerrero and Morelos. It says investigators learned the family was getting together in the city of Cuernavaca and detained him in a vehicle that was approaching the gathering.

Thursday’s statement says Salgado Valladares is suspected of kidnapping and organized crime.

As deputy chief for operations in the city of Iguala, Salgado Valladares allegedly ordered police to hand 13 of the missing students over to a drug gang in September.

The students remain missing. Authorities say they were massacred by the gang, although relatives continue to doubt the official account.