In September 2019, he was acquitted by a judge. His release caused concern at the time among the students’ families.
In 2015, the then Attorney General’s Office (PGR) arrested Gildardo López Astudillo for the first time under two arrest warrants against him, one of them for the crime of aggravated kidnapping against the 43 Ayotzinapa students, and the second for organized crime.
Astudillo had been identified by authorities as the link between the Guerreros Unidos criminal gang and its bases in the Iguala region. It was he who allegedly alerted the leader of this group, Sidronio Casarrubias, of the presence of the students on the night of their disappearance.
In a text message he allegedly sent to Casarrubias, López Astudillo reportedly said the students would never be found because “they had been turned into dust.”
The recapture occurs a few weeks before the 10th anniversary of the attack in Iguala.
