Thread: Body found on fire outside Tijuana, Mexico

Body found on fire outside Tijuana, Mexico

The Associated Press
5:03 p.m. April 21, 2009

TIJUANA, Mexico — Police found a body in flames dumped along a main thoroughfare on the outskirts of this violent northern border city, authorities said Tuesday.

The victim was found with his head wrapped in packing tape, a common practice used by drug smugglers against rivals, a city police report said.

The body was still on fire when it was found late Monday, but police said they did not know if the man was burned alive.
Officials were still trying to identify the corpse Tuesday.

The Baja California state prosecutor's office, meanwhile, said it had identified the remains of three young men found last week in Tecate, just outside Tijuana. In one case, only the skull and upper-body bones of a 25-year-old man were found.

Mexico's drug violence has claimed more than 10,700 lives since 2006 when President Felipe Calderon launched his anti-drug campaign, sending more than 45,000 troops to drug hotspots.

Tijuana, across the U.S. border from San Diego, California, has harbored some of the worst violence.

The Mexican Bishop's Council, meanwhile, urged Catholic priests in the country to be prudent when speaking publicly about drug trafficking.

Last week, the archbishop of the northern state of Durango, Hector Gonzalez Martinez, said the alleged leader of the powerful Sinaloa cartel lives near the Durango town of Guanacevi, and "everybody knows it except the authorities."

That stoked fear among the region's clergy, and Martinez quickly apologized for the statement. Law enforcement officials said they have no evidence that reputed Sinaloa cartel leader Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman lives in Guanacevi.

Priests should exercise "prudence when voicing opinions, especially if they can't back it up," Matamoros Bishop Faustino Armendariz said at a news conference at the opening of the annual meeting of the Bishop's Council.

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