Former Mexican governor killed in suspected drug-related attack

Former Mexican governor killed in suspected drug-related attack

2010-11-22 02:03:46 GMT+7 (ICT)

MEXICO CITY (BNO NEWS) -- The former governor of the Mexican state of Colima, Silverio Cavazos, was killed in a suspected drug-related attack on Sunday, the state's attorney general's office and other local officials confirmed.

State prosecutor Arturo Diaz Rivera said the former governor was outside his house in Colima City when gunmen stormed his residence at around 10.40 a.m. local time and shot him. He was later pronounced dead at a local hospital.

Police said two other people also sustained injuries. They were identified as Rafael Gutiérrez Villalobos, the state's Secretary of Economic Development, and a security guard,

Cavazos, 41, was elected to finish the 2003 - 2009 constitutional period of governor Gustavo Vazquez Montes, who died in a plane crash in February 2005.

The state of Colima, located on Mexico's southwestern Pacific coast, is considered safe by authorities. It is far away from the drug-plagued north, where a turf war between cartels is terrorizing the states of Tamaulipas, Nuevo Leon and Chihuahua.

More than 28,000 people, mainly drug traffickers and police, have been killed in Mexico's drug war since December 2006.

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