Tamaulipas gubernatorial candidate Dr. Rudolfo Torres Cantú, a 46-year old physician, was killed yesterday morning in an ambush as he and his entourage headed for a private meeting in Soto La Marina, near Cd. Victoria, capital of Tamaulipas. After the meeting Torres was to go to the airport to fly to Matamoros for the close of his campaign. The assassins, thought to be members of Los Zeta, who operate mainly in the Gulf region, blocked the road with a dump truck and as the entourage slowed down it was ambushed. Elections will be held as scheduled on Sunday. The PRI will select a replacement candidate today.
Torres' campaign manager, a local state representative, and three bodyguards were also killed in the attack. Four others were wounded. Spent cartridges of 7.62, .223 y 9 mm were found at the scene. Torres was from the PRI party but running as a coalition candidate with other parties, in his case the Green Party and Panal. Of all the gubernatorial candidates in Mexico he was farthest ahead in the polls and his election next Sunday was considered a virtual certainty.
Cesar Duarte Jaquez, who is ahead in the polls for the July 4 gubernatorial election in Chihuahua, lamented the death of Rudolfo Torres Cantú, assassinated in Tamaulipas just a few days before elections. "We know with clarity what (the risks of running for this office) are, and we are prepared to assume them," he said at the close of his campaign yesterday in Cd. Juarez.
Photograph was taken by El Universal
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