Forensic tests yield no new leads on Mexico's missing students

Forensic tests by Austrian experts on the presumed remains of 43 missing Mexican students have yielded no new leads, Mexico's Attorney General's Office (PGR) said on Tuesday.

Experts at the Medical University of Innsbruck, Austria, were unable to make any positive identification, because the remains collected at the site of the alleged massacre had been burnt to the point of destroying all genetic material, said the Office.

"From the beginning, we said it was very hard to make a positive ID on all of them given the degree of incineration," Mexican daily Excelsior cited Mexico's national Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam as saying.

"The fact that one of them has been identified is full proof that one of the students was killed, but it isn't the only evidence. There is much more," said Murillo.

The 43 students, from a rural teachers college, went missing on Sept. 26, last year, following a clash with police linked with drug gang members in the city of Iguala, in Mexico's violence-torn southern state of Guerrero.

Innsbruck's report concludes that excessive heat destroyed any traces of DNA that were contained in some 16 bone fragments recovered from a garbage dump, where the bodies of students were reportedly destroyed.

The remains of only one of the students, Alexander Mora Venancio, were identified in early December. Families of the students have been demanding the government continue the search for the victims.

According to the experts at Innsbruck, there still exists the possibility of identifying the remains using a new technology known as massive parallel sequencing (MPS), but the process could destroy any remaining DNA without yielding any results.

A new round of tests on the remains can take up to three or more months, the PGR said, adding it has asked the institute to carry out the study.