El Salvador says Romanian consul dies in suspected homicide

SAN SALVADOR (Reuters) - The honorary consul serving as Romania's diplomatic representative in El Salvador has died in a suspected homicide at his home in San Salvador, authorities in the crime-ridden Central American nation said on Sunday. The body of honorary consul Ricardo Emanuel Salume Barake was found bound and gagged at his house in a wealthy part of the Salvadoran capital and investigations were continuing, a police spokeswoman said. The attorney general's office said on Twitter the death was being treated as a homicide, but did not give further details. El Salvador's foreign ministry said Salume, a Salvadoran citizen, was Romania's only diplomatic representative in the country. The Romanian embassy in Mexico confirmed this. A surge in criminal violence in El Salvador in the past two years has lifted its homicide rate above neighboring Honduras, which had been the world's most murderous country. (Reporting by Nelson Renteria; Editing by Michael Perry)