Two men arrested in Malcolm Shabazz murder in Mexico, more sought

By Gabriel Stargardter

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Authorities in Mexico City have arrested two men on suspicion of the fatal beating of the grandson of U.S. civil rights activist Malcolm X in a bar last week and are looking for at least two more people, Mexico City Attorney General Rodolfo Rios said on Monday.

Malcolm Shabazz, who police have said was 29, died last Thursday at a bar just steps away from Mexico City's popular Plaza Garibaldi, where mariachis serenade tourists.

Police have arrested two men who are waiters at the bar, David Hernandez and Manuel Perez, and are looking for at least two more suspects, Rios said.

Shabazz was with Manuel Suarez, a labor rights activist who had recently been deported from the United States, when they were confronted by two women aged between 20 and 25 in the rough neighborhood of Tepito, said Rios.

The unidentified women, who police still want to question, took the two men to the Palace nightclub, said Rios. Shabazz and Suarez were then presented with a more than $1,200 bill, which they disputed. Police have described the Palace as a place of low repute.

"The aggrieved did not agree with the bill and couldn't come to an agreement," Rios said. Shabazz "was hit while his companion was threatened and had his belongings taken from him inside the building."

Shabazz, who had alcohol in his blood, died from blows to his head, ribs and jaw, Rios said.

Authorities were still trying to determine how Shabazz's body came to be dumped on the street, Rios said, noting that the bar's security cameras had been turned to face the wall.

Rios said rumors that Shabazz had jumped from the window were untrue. He said Shabazz's his family would not be coming to Mexico to recover the body.

Shabazz gained notoriety as a 12-year-old for starting a fire that killed his grandmother and Malcolm X's widow, Betty Shabazz.

(Reporting by Gabriel Stargardter; Editing by Leslie Adler)

View the original article here

Gas tanker truck explodes outside Mexico City, kills 20

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - A gas tanker truck exploded on a highway north of Mexico City early Tuesday, killing at least 18 people and injuring 36 others, the minister of public security in the State of Mexico said.

Fifteen vehicles and 20 houses were hit by the early morning blast, the official, Salvador Neme, said via Twitter.

Television footage showed burned out vehicles and debris strewn all over the highway on the edge of the capital.

In January, a massive explosion at the headquarters of state oil giant Pemex in downtown Mexico City claimed dozens of lives.

(Reporting by Dave Graham; Editing by Doina Chiacu)

View the original article here

Mexican journalists' sons killed; seven bodies found near Mexico City

By Gabriel Stargardter

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Gunmen executed two sons of two prominent Mexican journalists in the northern city of Chihuahua, a spokesman for the state attorney general's office said on Sunday, and police found seven bodies dumped in a Mexico City suburb.

Alfredo Paramo, 20, and Diego Paramo, 21, were shot dead in Chihuahua early on Saturday after being chased through the streets by gunmen in a car, said spokesman Carlos Gonzalez.

They are the sons of well-known Mexican financial journalist David Paramo, who hosts a radio show, appears on TV Azteca and has a national newspaper column, and Martha Gonzalez, the editor of the local El Peso newspaper.

"We still don't know what they were doing there," Carlos Gonzalez said. "But this has nothing to do with the professional activities of their parents."

Mexican journalists are often targeted and killed by drug cartels for reporting on their activities. The Committee to Protect Journalists, a New York-based advocacy group, says 25 journalists have been murdered in Mexico since 1992.

In a separate incident, authorities found seven bodies dumped in a car in a Mexico City suburb on Sunday morning, a local police official said.

Two of the men were found naked. Police have identified three of the men, who ranged in ages from 14 to 42, the official said.

It appeared all seven men, who were found in the suburb of Ecatepec, had been shot, the official said.

Last year, police discovered eight corpses dumped in the down-at-the-heels suburb of 2 million people.

Ecatepec lies in the State of Mexico, which borders the capital to the north and where more than half the population of greater Mexico City lives.

Until 2011, Enrique Pena Nieto, now the president of Mexico, was the governor of the State of Mexico.

He has vowed to take a different tack than his presidential predecessor, Felipe Calderon, who sent in the troops to tackle the warring drug cartels. Pena Nieto has focused instead on stopping kidnapping and extortion.

Roughly 70,000 people have died in drug-related killings since 2006, when Calderon launched his military-led campaign. More than 4,200 have died in the first four months of Pena Nieto's term, a slower pace than early 2012.

(Reporting by Gabriel Stargardter; Editing by Eric Beech)

View the original article here

Accused Los Angeles child kidnapper-rapist arrested in Mexico

By Steve Gorman

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A convicted felon suspected in the kidnapping and rape of a 10- year-old California girl who was snatched from her bedroom last month was arrested early on Wednesday in Mexico and returned to Los Angeles, FBI officials said.

Tobias Dustin Summers, also a reputed member of a white supremacist street gang in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles, was wanted on 37 criminal counts stemming from the March 27 kidnapping, the FBI said.

The girl was abducted from her home in the middle of the night, driven to various locations in two vehicles and raped before being dropped off near a hospital, according to police.

A passerby who saw her wandering barefoot with cuts and bruises outside a coffee shop watched over her until police were summoned.

Authorities did not provide details of the location and circumstances of Summers' capture, but FBI spokeswoman Lourdes Arocho in Los Angeles confirmed he had been taken into custody in Baja California by Mexican national police.

At an afternoon news conference, Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck credited a $50,000 reward that was "highly publicized south of the border" with leading to a telephone tip that helped authorities pinpoint Summers' whereabouts.

The fugitive's identity was initially confirmed by his tattoos, which the FBI said included the Superman logo on his upper chest, police said.

FBI special agent Tim Delaney, who oversees the criminal division of the FBI field office in Los Angeles, said Summers was returned to Los Angeles after his arrest. Beck said he would be held in lieu of $19 million bond.

Police and the FBI declined to comment on media reports that the suspect was found at a Mexican drug rehabilitation center south of Tijuana. Beck had said about three weeks ago that Summers was seen in surveillance video images crossing a foot bridge into Mexico.

Summers, 32, was indicted earlier this month on one count each of kidnapping a minor, kidnapping to commit another crime and first-degree burglary, plus 34 counts of various sex offenses. He faces multiple life prison terms if convicted, according to the District Attorney's Office.

His accused accomplice, 29-year-old Daniel Martinez, who was charged with one count each of kidnapping and burglary, was arrested on March 31.

Police have said Summers has a lengthy criminal history and had served prison terms for robbery, kidnapping, explosives possession and theft. He was most recently released from state custody in July 2012 under a program designed to ease prison overcrowding in California.

(Reporting by Steve Gorman; Editing by Cynthia Johnston, Eric Walsh and Cynthia Osterman)

View the original article here

Earthquake shakes buildings in Mexico City

DEAR ABBY: My husband, "Wade," and I went into a convenience store near our home that we frequent regularly. A new employee -- a pretty, much younger girl -- stared at Wade with an expression of recognition and surprise on her face. When I asked him what that was about, he laughed it off and said I was "imagining things."The next time we saw her, Wade acted nervous and started talking fast, as if trying to distract me. He seemed to be avoiding eye contact with her. She ignored me while obviously trying to lock eyes with Wade. ...

View the original article here

Mexico arrests head of teacher's union on fraud charges

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico on Tuesday arrested Elba Esther Gordillo, the powerful head of the country's teachers' union, on suspicion of embezzling the union's funds, the Mexican attorney general said.

Authorities accuse Gordillo, who is viewed as one of the key obstacles to education reform in Mexico, of siphoning off millions of pesos of union money into private accounts, Jesus Murillo told reporters at a news conference.

"Clearly, we're facing a case in which the money of education workers has been misused illegally for the benefit of various people, including Elba Esther Gordillo," Murillo said. "Under this government nobody is above the law."

The arrest of Gordillo, who critics have for years accused of corruption, came a day after the Mexican government signed a broad education reform into law.

The Mexican teachers' union fought against the law, which limits union control over hiring and teaching standards, and aims to improve Mexico's failing school system.

(Reporting by Gabriel Stargardter; editing by Jackie Frank)

View the original article here