A former Mexican presidential candidate who has remained a power broker in the ruling party was missing amid signs of violence, the federal Attorney General’s Office said on Saturday.
Prosecutors said that the car of Diego Fernandez de Cevallos was found near his ranch in the central state of Queretaro. It said some of his belongings were found inside the car as well as unspecified “signs of violence.”
The Mexican newspaper El Universal reported that federal sources said Fernandez de Cevallos had been kidnapped, but a federal prosecutor’s spokeswoman said she could not confirm that.
Queretaro state Attorney General Arsenio Duran told the radio station Formato 21 that investigators found some of Fernandez de Cevallos’ belongings inside the car and a small pair of scissors with traces of blood on the ground near the car.
Duran said a night watchman told police Fernandez de Cevallos was supposed to arrive to his ranch in the town of Pedro Escobedo on Friday night, but that he never made it.
Relatives who had planned to have breakfast with him Saturday morning reported him missing, Duran said. Relatives told authorities no one had contacted them to ask for a ransom.
Fernandez de Cevallos, 69, was the 1994 presidential candidate of the National Action Party (PAN) that now governs Mexico and he has continued to be an influential figure, as well as one of Mexico’s most successful attorneys.
The bearded, cigar-chomping candidate emerged from relative obscurity during Mexico’s first televised debate by presidential candidates in 1994, striking a chord with the middle class with his calls to topple the Institutional Revolutionary Party, which had held power since 1929.
He finished second to Ernesto Zedillo that year, but his party finally won the presidency six years later when Vicente Fox was elected.
Mexican President Felipe Calderon said in a statement he has ordered federal authorities to help Querataro state investigators in the search for Fernandez de Cevallos, calling him “a key politician in the Mexican transition to democracy.”
Fernandez de Cevallos became an elder statesman for the party, a power broker who split his time between Mexico’s Senate and his practice as an attorney for some of Mexico’s richest businesses.
He shrugged off critics’ allegations that there was a conflict of interest in representing companies that won lucrative lawsuits against the government while serving in Congress.
Fernandez de Cevallos’ father helped found the PAN in 1939.
One of 15 children, Fernandez de Cevallos grew up in the central state of Queretaro and eventually joined law firms linked to some of the PAN’s founders, creating ties that continued throughout his life. He was a close friend of several senior Cabinet ministers, including Mexican Interior Secretary Fernando Gomez-Mont.
Kidnappers often target the wealthy in Mexico but rarely go after such senior politicians or public officials.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
‘BODIES EVERYWHERE’: The incident occurred at a Filipino festival celebrating an anti-colonial leader, with the driver described as a ‘lone suspect’ known to police Canadian police arrested a man on Saturday after a car plowed into a street party in the western Canadian city of Vancouver, killing a number of people. Authorities said the incident happened shortly after 8pm in Vancouver’s Sunset on Fraser neighborhood as members of the Filipino community gathered to celebrate Lapu Lapu Day. The festival, which commemorates a Filipino anti-colonial leader from the 16th century, falls this year on the weekend before Canada’s election. A 30-year-old local man was arrested at the scene, Vancouver police wrote on X. The driver was a “lone suspect” known to police, a police spokesperson told journalists at the
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has unveiled a new naval destroyer, claiming it as a significant advancement toward his goal of expanding the operational range and preemptive strike capabilities of his nuclear-armed military, state media said yesterday. North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Kim attended the launching ceremony for the 5,000-tonne warship on Friday at the western port of Nampo. Kim framed the arms buildup as a response to perceived threats from the US and its allies in Asia, who have been expanding joint military exercises amid rising tensions over the North’s nuclear program. He added that the acquisition
RSS