Mexican federal lawmaker feared dead after kidnap

GUADALAJARA, Mexico – Mexican authorities are checking whether one of two badly burned bodies found Tuesday, September 23, in the north of the country belongs to a federal lawmaker who was kidnapped, officials said.

The two corpses were found in Zacatecas state inside the charred sport-utility vehicle of ruling party deputy Gabriel Gomez Michel, said prosecutors in his home state of Jalisco.

“The government of Zacatecas confirm the discovery of the SUV owned by the federal deputy in the town of Jalpa with two burned bodies,” Jalisco’s attorney general Luis Carlos Najera said.

Authorities will conduct DNA tests to confirm the identities of the bodies, but Najera said investigators believe Gomez Michel is among the dead while the other remains belong to a bodyguard or an assistant.

Gomez Michel’s wife reported the kidnapping on Monday, September 22, saying he was taken while he was driving in the southern outskirts of the western city of Guadalajara, capital of Jalisco, on his way to the airport.

The car was found in the early hours of Tuesday at the border of Zacatecas with Jalisco and Aguascalientes states.

Officials said the crime resembled the “modus operandi” of drug cartels, which are known to kidnap and kill victims.

But Najera said the lawmaker, who worked as a pediatrician for 18 years and was mayor of the town of El Grullo in 2010-2012, had not received any threats prior to his kidnapping.

Local politicians have often been the targets of attacks or threats during Mexico’s drug war, with at least 30 mayors killed since 2006, but attacks against federal officials or lawmakers are less common.

Gomez Michel belongs to President Enrique Peña Nieto’s Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), and his kidnapping comes at a time when the government says that violent crimes have fallen nationwide in the past year. – Rappler.com