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Gunmen dump 35 bodies on busy avenue in Mexico

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Published : Sept. 21, 2011 - 14:42

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MEXICO CITY (AP) _ Masked gunmen blocked traffic on a busy avenue in a Gulf of Mexico coastal city Tuesday and dumped the bodies of 35 slaying victims as horrified motorists watched, authorities said.

Veracruz state Attorney General Reynaldo Escobar Perez said the bodies were left piled in two trucks and on the ground of an underpass near a shopping mall in the city of Boca del Rio.

Police had identified seven of the victims so far and all had criminal records for murder, drug dealing, kidnapping and extorsion and were linked to organized crime, Escobar said. He didn't say to what group the victims belonged to.

The Zetas drug cartel has been locked in a bloody war with drug gangs for control of Veracruz, a state along an important route for drugs and Central American migrants heading north.

Motorists first began tweeting Tuesday afternoon that masked gunmen in military uniforms were blocking Manuel Avila Camacho Boulevard in Boca del Rio's downtown and pointing their guns at civilians.

``They don't seem to be soldiers or police,'' a tweet read. Another said, ``Don't go through that area, there is danger.''

Escobar said police were reviewing surveillance video recorded in the area.

Local media said that 12 of the victims were women and that some of the dead men had been among prisoners who escaped from three Veracruz prisons on Monday, but Escobar said he couldn't confirm that.

At least 32 inmates got away from the three Veracruz prisons. Police recaptured 14 of them.

Earlier Tuesday, the Mexican army announced it had captured a key figure in the cult-like Knights Templar drug cartel that is sowing violence in western Mexico.

Saul Solis Solis, 49, a former police chief and one-time congressional candidate, was captured without incident Monday in the cartel's home state of Michoacan, Brig. Gen. Edgar Luis Villegas said during a presentation of Solis to the media.

Solis is considered one of the principal lieutenants in the Knights Templar, which split late last year from La Familia, a pseudo-religious drug gang known as a major trafficker of methamphetamine.

He is accused in various attacks on the military and federal police, including one in May 2007 that killed an officer and four soldiers, Villegas said. Solis also is suspected of planting and harvesting drugs, managing clandestine labs manufacturing synthetic drugs and ordering attacks on police facilities in cities around the entire state.

Mexico's attorney general had offered a $1.1 million reward for information leading to his capture.

Solis is a cousin of one of the Knights Templar's main alleged leaders, Enrique Plancarte Solis. Saul Solis served as director of public safety in the Michoacan town of Turicato in 2003-05 and ran for the federal congress in 2009 as a Green Party candidate, finishing fourth in his district with about 11,000 votes.

Authorities said a judge had issued an arrest warrant for Solis on charges of organized crime and drug trafficking at the time of the vote.

President Felipe Calderon launched an offensive against organized crime in 2006 in his home state of Michoacan, where much of the violence had been attributed to La Familia. Knights Templar became a splinter group after the leader of La Familia, Nazario Moreno Gonzalez, was killed in a shootout with federal police last December.

A second La Familia leader, Jose de Jesus Mendez Vargas, was arrested in June, leading Calderon's government to say it had all but dismantled the gang. But violence continues in Michoacan and other parts of western Mexico where Knights Templar is trying to control territory.

Both groups claim to be devoted to God and to be fighting poverty and injustice under a strict code of conduct.

Late Monday, four gunmen died in a clash between drug cartels in the Michoacan towns of Caracuaro and Tiquicheo, the army said in a statement. It said residents told authorities several vehicles packed with gunmen had been seen in the area earlier Monday.

Drug violence has claimed more than 35,000 lives across Mexico since 2006, according to government figures. Others put the number at more than 40,000.

In northern Mexico, the army announced the detention of two more suspects in a casino fire that killed 52 people last month in the northern city of Monterrey.

The two men captured at a bar in Monterrey late Monday confessed to being members of the Zetas drug cartel and participating in the attack, federal prosecutors said.

Six others, including a Nuevo Leon state police officer, previously were arrested in the case and 16 more suspects remain at large.

Last week, the parents and a brother of a police officer involved in the casino investigation were shot to death at their Monterrey home. Authorities said the attack could have been revenge because the officer helped identify some of the alleged attackers.

Separately in Nuevo Leon, Mexican marines captured 19 alleged members of the Zetas drug cartel at a ranch that was being used as a training camp in the town of Colombia, the military announced.

A navy statement said that seven minors were among those detained and that marines seized four rifles, a pistol, and several military uniforms and boots.

<한글기사>



멕시코갱단, 시민들 앞에서 시체 35구 유기



(멕시코시티 AP=연합뉴스) 멕시코 멕시코만에 접해있는 베라크루스 주(州) 보카 델 리오 시에서 20일 복면 괴한들이 중심가 도로를 가로막고 사람들이 지켜보는  가 운데 시체 35구를 유기하는 엽기적인 사건이 벌어졌다.

베라크루스 주 치안당국은 괴한들이 트럭 2대를 이용해 쇼핑몰 인근 지하차도에 시체를 버리고 도주했다고 밝혔다.

목격자들은 이날 오후 군복 차림의 복면 괴한들이 도로를 봉쇄한 후 총구를  시 민들에게 겨누고 있는 상황에서 시체를 유기했다고 증언했다.

현지 언론은 일부 피살자가 최근 교도소를 탈출한 죄수들이라고 보도했다. 지난 19일 현지 3개 교도소에서 최소한 32명이 탈출했으며 이 가운데 14명이 붙잡혔다.

경찰은 이들 시체들 가운데 이제까지 7구의 신원을 확인하는 한편 이들 전원이 전과가 있으며 범죄조직에 연계되어 있는 것으로 보인다고 밝혔다.

베라크루스 주에서는 마약 카르델 걸프와 세타스 사이에 주도권 장악을  둘러싸 고 피비린내나는 살육이 계속됐다.

지난 2006년 펠리페 칼데론 대통령이 취임과 동시에 마약범죄와의 전쟁을  선포 한 후 마약범죄와 관련해 3만5천명 이상이 목숨을 잃었다고 당국은 밝히고 있다. 그 러나 인권단체 등은 사망자가 4만명 이상인 것으로 추정하고 있다.