Police free kidnapped Tijuana doctor

By Sandra Dibble, UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
Monday, December 14, 2009 at 8:40 p.m.

Criminals operating from a penitentiary in Mexico City were linked to the abduction earlier this month of a well-known physician who was rescued late Sunday by Baja California agents, authorities said Monday.

Dr. Irán Cota Cota was found handcuffed by his hands and feet inside a residence in the central La Mesa section of the city, 11 days after he was kidnapped outside his Tijuana home.

Cota is secretary-general of a medical union at a federal Social Security Hospital in Tijuana. He holds dual U.S. and Mexican citizenship, but lives in Tijuana, authorities said.

Rommel Moreno Manjarrez, Baja California’s attorney general, said that members of his anti-kidnapping squad and agents from the State Preventive Police participated in Cota’s rescue.

At the residence, they detained Guillermo Aguilar Lujano and Jellman Kadef Torrentera Loera, both 22. Moreno said they are members of a kidnapping ring with links to the Reclusorio Sur Penitentiary in Mexico City as well as a criminal gang operating in Tijuana. The kidnappers had asked for $300,000 in return for Cota’s liberation, but no ransom was paid, authorities said.

The doctor’s release was a bright spot in a particularly violent weekend in Tijuana. From 5 p.m. Friday to midday Monday, authorities counted 23 killings, including that of a man found hanging from a bridge early Monday. By Monday evening, the number had risen by two more, authorities said.

There have been 43 violent deaths in the city so far this month, the Baja California Attorney General’s Office reported Monday afternoon. That brings the year’s total to 575.

Moreno said that many of the most recent victims appeared to be small-time drug dealers, but offered no further details.

“We are seeing a war between cartels,â€