On January 16, 2015, “El Cepillo” was arrested by elements of the Mexican Army and the Federal Police (PF) in the municipality of Jiutepec, Morelos.
Felipe Rodríguez Salgado was the one who supposedly gave the order to pulverize the charred bones of the Ayotzinapa students to be placed in black garbage bags that would be thrown into the San Juan River, according to what the former Attorney General of the Republic, Jesús Murillo Karam, said at the time.
He was also identified as the person who gave the order to burn the clothes that the normalistas’ killers were wearing, “so that there would be no trace left.”
On January 19, 2017, the PGR determined that two people investigated for the disappearance of the normalistas could have been tortured, including “El Cepillo.”
The Attorney General’s Office explained at the time that “El Cepillo” had some injuries that could have been related to certain maneuvers or actions of physical torture, however, it is emphasized that he himself refused to undergo the mandatory psychological evaluation, as established by the Istanbul Protocol.
The Istanbul Protocol is an international human rights guide for the medical and psychological assessment of a person who is suspected or has been a victim of torture or ill-treatment during detention or criminal proceedings.
On September 26, 2018, the first district judge for federal criminal proceedings based in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, ordered the release of Felipe Rodríguez Salgado.
In July 2020, a video was released showing the former director of the Criminal Investigation Agency (AIC), Tomás Zerón, irregularly interrogating Felipe Rodríguez Salgado.
The material, released by journalist Ciro Gómez Leyva, was allegedly recorded before “El Cepillo” was brought before the Public Prosecutor’s Office. It shows Tomás Zerón dressed in black, accompanied by other agents, while they interrogate the alleged perpetrator of the disappearance of the students.
In the recording, “El Cepillo” appeared handcuffed, shirtless, with a cloth over his head and sitting on a chair, while Zerón asked him questions about the whereabouts of the students who disappeared in September 2014.
In April 2023, the Attorney General’s Office (FGR) formally accused former Attorney General Jesús Murillo Karam of having tortured “El Cepillo.”
Murillo Karam was brought to trial on April 22, 2023. After spending a year in prison, in 2024, a judge decided to grant him house arrest.
While in February 2024, the former head of the AIC, Tomás Zerón de Lucio, reappeared in a BBC documentary, in which he denied having tortured “El Cepillo”.
“It seems that I threatened him, okay, but I never tortured him. I was the head of the Criminal Investigation Agency, I had no need to torture anyone,” said the former official, who is currently a fugitive in Israel.
