By EFE,
Chilpancingo (Mexico) : The speaker of the legislature in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero was gunned down Thursday by some unidentified gunmen outside his house, officials said.
Armando Chavarria Barrera, a member of the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution, or PRD, served as the state’s interior minister until May 6, 2008, when he resigned in the wake of the murders of 17 ranchers.
The legislator was killed at around 7 a.m. in Chilpancingo, the state capital, the Guerrero Public Safety Secretariat said.
Chavarria Barrera was apparently shot several times after he got into his car.
“As of now the motive for the crime is not known, nor is the identity of the killer or killers,” the secretariat said.
In a separate incident Thursday, three human heads were found in three coolers in the town of Coyuca de Catalan, also in Guerrero, the provincial public security ministry said.
Two black bags and a blanket holding dismembered human body parts were found near the coolers. The authorities believe these may be the three bodies that correspond to the dismembered heads.
Armed groups linked to Mexico’s drug cartels murdered around 1,500 people in 2006 and 2,700 people in 2007, with the 2008 death toll soaring to more than 6,000.
So far this year more than 4,450 people have died.