Small town mayor murdered in Mexico was accused of killings
MEXICO CITY (AP) — The mayor of a small town in Mexico’s Gulf coast state of Veracruz was found murdered Wednesday, four months after her police chief was shown in a video accusing her of ordering officers to abduct people in order to kill them.
Veracruz Gov. Cuitláhuac Garcia said the body of Florisel Ríos, mayor of the town of Jamapa, had been found Wednesday.
Gov. Garcia pledged the killers would be brought to justice, though he also acknowledged there were criminal investigations open against current and former town officials.
The former police chief of Jamapa, Miguel Castillo, disappeared in July and hasn’t been seen since.
But he was shown in a video apparently made after his disappearance, blindfolded and unclothed, making the accusations as other men interrogated him. Such videos are commonly made by drug cartels in Mexico.
In a letter July 26, Ríos denied Castillo's accusations, banding them “totally false.”
The opposition Democratic Revolution Party said in a statement that Ríos and other mayors had complained of harassment and persecution by the state government. Gov. Garcia belongs to President Andrés Manuel López Obrador's Morena party.
The state of Veracruz has been plagued by drug cartel turf wars, kidnappings and disappearances in which police were frequently involved in the past.
