Mexican missing students: investigators claim to find 17 bodies in disputed report

The new report has not yet been properly assessed, says the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights

Relatives of the missing students from Ayotzinapa College Raul Isidro Burgos take part in a demonstration (Reuters)

At least "17 burned bodies" have reportedly been found by investigators searching for tens of missing college students in Mexico.

The team, who took over from the government in investigating the disappearance of 43 teacher college students, claimto have found evidence of a large fire where bodies were dumped.

But experts at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), who approved the new team, said they had not seen the report and the new announcement had been made without their agreed consensus.

Other experts have also expressed concerns about the way the investigation into the Rural Normal School at Ayotzinapa is currently being handled.

Yet tests are being conducted to see whether all the students were killed at the site in the town of Cocula in Guerrero state - a claim similar to that previously made the government.

Ricardo Damian Torres, from the offices of Mexico's attorney general, did not say when such a fire occurred or offer any explanation as to how the team conducted its research and reached its conclusion.

"There is sufficient evidence, including physically observable, to affirm that there was a controlled fire event of great dimensions in the place called the Cocula dump," he said.

Ricardo Damian Torres, from the offices of Mexico's attorney general, did not check the report with the IACHR

The students at the all-male college are believed to have been intercepted having hijacked buses to attend a commemoration of a 1968 massacre of students, at some point being kidnapped and killed.

An independent investigation into the events was re-launched after relatives of the students refused the government's official finding that a corrupt police unit had handed the young men over to a local gang who were responsible for killing them.

Vidulfo Rosales, a lawyer representing the families, said he had not been given access to the report and was concerned about the way the attorney general's office was handling the investigation.

Family members have also queried the role of soldiers at a nearby barracks, whom the government have only allowed to be interviewed by its own prosecutors.

The following month, the Argentine Forensic Anthropology team - brought in at the families' request - said evidence did not support the government's version that the students were burned at the site.

Mexico's national human rights commission also raised a number of questions about the government's original investigation, which has dogged the administration of President Enrique Pena Nieto.

The police and military were also monitoring the students' movements before they were attacked, according to experts sent by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR).

Yet now the IACHR has said its collaboration with the team who announced this new evidence of burnt bodies is "broken", because that team has not passed the findings over to them for assessment.

The IACHR said in a statement that there was not even a consensus among fire experts about the possibility of a dump where all the students were killed.

Associated Press