Mexico City – Families and supporters of the 43 students from Ayotzinapa teacher’s college abducted and killed eight years ago vandalized the Israeli Embassy here Wednesday during a protest to demand that Israel extradite a former head of Mexico’s equivalent of the FBI who faces charges in connection with the case.
The demonstration began peacefully, but hooded militants destroyed the embassy’s security cameras and painted the walls with slogans such as “Extradition of Tomas Zeron” and “43,” as well as “Free Palestine” and “Death to Zionism.”
The protest shut down a busy street in downtown Mexico City’s Lomas de Chapultepec neighborhood for nearly an hour.
Mexico submitted its request for the extradition of Zeron, who led the now-defunct ACI during the 2012-2018 administration of President Enrique Peña Nieto, in September 2020.
Zeron is accused of destroying evidence and torturing witnesses in the course of the investigation of the September 2014 mass abduction in the southern state of Guerrero.
Israel and Mexico don’t have an extradition treaty and The New York Times reported in July that Israeli officials ignored the request to punish the Mexican government for its vote in the United Nations to investigate the crisis in Palestine.
Mexico’s current president, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, has written directly to Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett to request his help in securing the return of Zeron to face justice.v
