Mexico City, Aug 20 (IANS): A former Attorney General of Mexico has been arrested in relation to the case of 43 students who went missing eight years ago from Guerrero state, authorities said.

The Attorney General's Office (FGR) said on Friday that police arrested "Jesus Murillo Karam, who was Attorney General of the Republic... for the crimes of forced disappearance, torture and obstruction of justice, in the 'Ayotzinapa' case", reports dpa news agency.

The former top prosecutor was arrested in his home in Mexico City, the FGR said in a statement.

On September 26, 2014, 43 young men studying at a rural teacher training college in Ayotzinapa went missing in the city of Iguala while travelling on buses they had stolen.

They were pursued by corrupt police officers and allegedly handed over to the crime syndicate Guerreros Unidos for reasons that are not known.

Karam, who was Attorney General from December 2012 to February 2015, was responsible for the initial investigation into the case.

The official report at the time said their bodies had been burned at a rubbish dump, but that version of events was later discredited.

On Thursday, Alejandro Encinas, secretary of state for Human Rights in the Ministry of Interior, said the version of events the government had described at the time was wrong and called the students' disappearance a "state crime" with various levels of state institutions involved.

The Mexican government has declared all of the missing students dead.