MEXICO – WOMAN MAYOR MURDERED ONE DAY AFTER TAKING OFFICE
Website Link Includes Video.
By KELLY MCLAUGHLIN FOR DAILYMAIL.COM and ASSOCIATED PRESS – 3 January 3, 2016
The mayor of a city south of Mexico’s capital was shot to death on Saturday, less than a day after taking office, officials said.
Four gunmen burst into the house of Mayor Gisela Mota, 33, in the city of Temixco – which is in disputed drug territory about 60 miles south of Mexico City – and killed her, said the government of Morelos State, where Temixco is located. Local police later arrested two alleged attackers, while killing two others, according to a statement issued by the Morelos attorney general’s office. The alleged attackers have not been named.
Several mayors were killed last year in Mexico, where armed gangs financed by the drugs trade control many local communities.
Mota was killed just a day after being sworn in as mayor of Temixco in the Mexican state of Morelos, which is a disputed drug-cartel territory
Temixco is in disputed drug territory that more than one cartel has activity in, but its state of Morelos shares a border with drug cartel-plagued Guerrero state.
Officials attributed her killing to organized crime.
There was a police presence at Mota’s home for several hours after the 7am killing occurred, according to Diario de Morelos. Temixco is a city of about 100,000 people neighboring Cuernavaca, a resort and industrial city which has been suffering kidnappings and extortion linked to organized crime groups.
In March, the body of mayoral candidate AidéNava González was found on the outskirts of Oxtotitlan, the town she was hoping to represent. Her head was decapitated and ‘narcomanta’ was written on a sheet covering her body, which was a drug gang message, according to the New York Daily News. Her husband – a former mayor – had been murdered and her son abducted by criminal gangs, according to The Telegraph. Her son, who was abducted in 2014, was never found.
Jerecuaro’s mayor-elect was killed in the state of Guanajuato in June of last year.
Morelos Gov Graco Ramirez vowed there ‘would be no impunity’ in her killing and promised that state officials would not cede to the challenge presented by organized crime.
He called Mota a ‘young and beloved companion’ and said he would not be intimidated by her death.
Federal and state forces are deployed in Cuernavaca and municipalities near the Guerrero state border in what is called ‘Operation Delta’.
Categories: Releases
