Salvadoran police arrest 5 in slaying of Frenchman

Four alleged gang members and a police officer have been arrested in the slaying of French documentary filmmaker Christian Poveda, Salvadoran authorities said Wednesday.

Howard Cotto, subdirector of investigations for the national police, identified the arrested officer as Jose Napoleon Espinoza, an agent assigned to the 911 emergency phone system in Soyapango outside the capital, San Salvador.

Espinoza allegedly collaborated with gang members, living in an area controlled by El Salvador's brutal "Maras" and receiving money from extortion schemes, Cotto told reporters.

Poveda, a French citizen with Spanish parents, was found shot to death in a car outside the capital Sept. 3.

He had spent years recording the activities of El Salvador's Mara 18 street gang for the film "La Vida Loca," practically living among its members while filming initiations, drug use, tattoo sessions and funerals.

Police said the four alleged gang members arrested belong to Mara 18. One was detained the day after the killing and apparently provided clues that led to the other arrests. A second suspect, who purportedly ordered the killing, was already in prison for previous convictions.

Prosecutor Astor Escalante said all five suspects would be charged with crimes including aggravated homicide, conspiracy to commit homicide and illicit association.

The suspects did not immediately have lawyers of record or respond to the allegations.

The day he was killed, Poveda set out to visit gang-dominated Soyapango to arrange an interview with female gang members for journalists from a French fashion magazine. He told an Associated Press photographer about the outing before leaving.

According to a police report, Poveda was intercepted on his return by assailants who forced him drive to the spot where he was shot four times, including in the head.

Police have not given a motive.

Gang violence in impoverished El Salvador fuels one of the highest homicide rates in Latin America. The country has more than 16,000 gang members, many of whom were deported from the United States after serving jail terms there.