Kidnapped Mexican boy killed by injection of acid

MEXICO CITY — Kidnappers grabbed a 5-year-old boy from a Mexico City street market, then killed him by injecting acid into his heart — a new low even for Mexico's brutal kidnapping gangs.

The boy, Javier Morena, was the oldest son of a poor family that sold fruit at a market in the poor neighborhood of Iztapalapa, proof that the plague of kidnappings for ransom afflicts the working class as well as the wealthy.

Javier disappeared while playing at the market Oct. 26, Mexico City authorities said Monday.

The boy's family spent days looking for him, finally persuading a local television station to post his picture on the news Oct. 29.

A taxi driver recognized the boy and told the family he had given the boy and a teenager a ride outside the city.

The driver identified the teen from a photo, and police raided the 17-year-old's home, where he and his family and two others confessed to having killed the boy before they could ask for a $23,000 ransom, Mexico City Attorney General Miguel Mancera said.

Mancera said the assailants injected the boy with acid and buried him outside the capital.

Five suspected kidnappers, including the 17-year-old, are under arrest.

It was unclear if the group had carried out other kidnappings.

The child's death recalled the recent kidnapping and slaying of Fernando Marti, the 14-year-old son of a sporting-goods magnate whose death prompted a national outcry against crime.

Police commander killed in ambush

MEXICO CITY — Nestor Pena Sanchez, a state police commander, was ambushed by gunmen as he left home early Monday, becoming the 12th officer slain in the central state of Mexico in five days.

The spate of killings, which has claimed state and municipal officers in half a dozen cities and towns since Thursday, appears to be the work of criminal gangs trying to gain a foothold in drug trafficking.

Meanwhile, authorities in Sonora reported the assassination of Juan Manuel Pavon Felix, the state's second-ranking police official in a hotel blast in the border city of Nogales. In Guanajuato state, four police officers died Monday in a pair of shootings, according to Mexican news reports.

Los Angeles Times