Twenty-eight Mexican police held over political murder

25/6/2018 11:45

        Twenty-eight police
        officers in the western Mexican state of Michoacan have been
        arrested on suspicion of involvement in the murder of a
        candidate for mayor in the municipality of Ocampo, local media
        reported on Sunday.
        
        State authorities issued a statement on Sunday saying all
        members of Ocampo's municipal police department had been taken
        in for questioning by the police's internal affairs department.
        
        The probe focused on potential violations of the police code
        of conduct, the statement said, without giving more details.
        
        Local and national media said the officers were held on
        suspicion of complicity in the killing of Fernando Angeles
        Juarez, who was running for mayor of Ocampo, which lies on the
        eastern fringe of Michoacan and is home to some 24,000 people.
        
        Juarez was shot dead on Thursday, and was competing for the
        center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), which
        governs the long-troubled state.
        
        A source in the state familiar with the investigation said
        that the media reports about the arrests were correct.
        Twenty-eight police were detained in the operation, the source
        added, speaking on condition of anonymity.
        
        Mexico will vote for a new president on July 1 alongside
        hundreds of other federal, state and municipal posts.
        
        The 2018 election campaign has been the bloodiest in
        Mexico's modern history with dozens of politicians, candidates
        and activists murdered by criminal groups and gangsters seeking
        to influence the shape of the post-electoral map.