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Hitman takes out another folk singer (Kubaya apparently no protection)
A MEXICAN singer has been shot dead in the northern state of Sinaloa, the latest in what appears to be a growing list of folk musician slayings by organised crime gangs.Sinaloa's justice department said Jorge Antonio Sepulveda, 20, was found dead early today on a road near the city of Guasave, 164km northwest of the state capital Culiacan. Sepulveda, who was not well-known nationally, had been shot at least a dozen times with high-calibre guns. A nearby car authorities believed belonged to him was burnt to a shell. Authorities could not immediately comment on the motive for the killing, which bore the trademarks of the dozens of gangland-style murders that take place in Mexico each week. President Felipe Calderon launched a nationwide war a year ago on the drug cartels which control most of Mexico's organised crime. Drug-related killings surpassed 2500 last year and this year began with a spate of shootings. Around half a dozen Mexican musicians have been killed over the past two years as hitmen who once targeted performers of "narcocorridos", or ballads about drug kingpins, broadened their aim to include more mainstream folk singers. Valentin Elizalde was killed by drug hitmen in 2006. Last month, Sergio Gomez, front man of the popular band K-Paz de la Sierra, was abducted and strangled to death in the western state of Michoacan. Two others who died last month were Jose Luis Aquino, a trumpet player found beaten to death with a plastic bag over his head, and Zayda Pena, who was shot in a motel room. The killers followed her to the hospital and finished her off with two more bullets as she lay in bed. Meanwhile, gunmen killed eight people including three senior police officers and a three-year-old boy in the Mexican border city of Tijuana, a week after the government beefed up security there against drug gangs. Police believe the same gunmen were responsible for all eight killings. Mexico sent hundreds of police and army reinforcements last week to Tijuana, just south of San Diego, following a rash of drug killings. Tijuana is the biggest city in Baja California, which was Mexico's most violent state in 2007 with more than 400 gangland-style murders. Posted by: phil_b 2008-01-15 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=219463 |