3 National Guardsmen are suspects in Oaxaca kidnapping

Two members of the National Guard are in custody on kidnapping charges and a third is dead after they engaged in a gunfight with state police in Oaxaca on Wednesday.

The clash occurred Wednesday afternoon on Federal Highway 190 in San Pablo Etla, a municipality just north of Oaxaca city.

One of the guardsmen was shot by state investigative police and subsequently died in hospital. Two police officers were wounded.

A young man from Miahuatlán de Porfirio Díaz who was allegedly kidnapped by the three guardsmen was rescued from a home from which the security force members fled before opening fire at police to aid their escape. Relatives of the man said the National Guard members had asked for 200,000 pesos (US $10,000) and a pickup truck as ransom.

The Oaxaca Attorney General’s Office said it would carry out a “diligent and exhaustive” investigation into the incident between police and the members of the National Guard, a two-year-old security force created by the current federal government.

It also said it would seek to gather evidence to support the accusation that the detained guardsmen committed the kidnapping.

With reports from Milenio and Reforma