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Gunmen killed the police chief of a Mexican city bordering California yesterday, shooting him some 50 times in an apparent revenge attack after police found a drug-smuggling tunnel under the border.
Gunmen broke into the house of Tecate police chief Juan Soriano and shot him in the face and torso as he slept in bed with his wife. His wife was not hit.
The killing of Soriano, who had started his job only last week, appeared to be an act of revenge against Mexican police, who on Tuesday discovered a tunnel nearly 1.6km long running into California from Tecate near the Pacific coast after a tip-off from the United States Border Patrol.
"As soon as Soriano made public the discovery of the tunnel, he went home and hours later, they executed him in his bedroom," said a police official.
Police also found two tonnes of marijuana in a vehicle near the tunnel, which ran from an abandoned warehouse close to the Tecate crossing point into a rural area of Southern California, and was one of the longest ever discovered along the US-Mexico border.
The Mexican Government says the deployment of some 25,000 troops and federal police across Mexico is halting drug violence. But violence has continued in Baja California, Mexico's bloodiest state, where more than 300 people have been killed this year.
- REUTERS
