At about 6:30 AM on June 6, unknown persons in a Chevrolet fired on an armored van carrying Cecilia Gurza, the wife of imprisoned Mexican business magnate Carlos Ahumada Kurtz, near the couple’s Mexico City home; their three children and the family’s driver were also in the vehicle. There were no injuries, but the van was hit by 10 bullets. Gurza said she was taking the children to school, and later in the day she was planning to make public five videos allegedly showing corruption by officials of the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD).
Gurza said she had been receiving telephoned death threats since June 3, and that the videos would hurt former Mexico City mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the PRD’s candidate in the July 2 presidential elections. The Argentine-born Ahumada made similar videos public in 2004 before his own arrest on corruption charges. Long the front runner, Lopez Obrador is now tied with Felipe Calderon of the center-right National Action Party (PAN); recent polls show both with about 35% of voter preferences. (El Diario-La Prensa, NY, June 7 from La Opinion, AP)
The shooting is being investigated by the PRD-controlled Mexico City government. As of June 10, Gurza had denied requests from the city’s attorney general, Bernardo Batiz, for the five videos. So far the only person detained in the incident is Miguel Angel Cruz Vazquez, who was working illegally as a bodyguard for the Ahumada family at the same time that he was employed as a guard at Mexico City’s Reclusorio Norte prison, where he was guarding Ahumada himself. (LJ, June 11; El Universal, June 9)
From Weekly News Update on the Americas, June 11
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