Feb 27 2007
Guatemala mafia killed officers
Guatemalan President Oscar Berger says he believes organised criminal gangs were behind the killing of four police officers held in a Guatemalan prison.
The four men had been detained over suspected involvement in the killing of three visiting Salvadorean politicians.
The officers were shot by armed men who penetrated a maximum security facility, sparking a 12-hour riot among inmates.
Authorities have now arrested the prison’s director and 21 employees, including prison guards.
Investigators are trying to determine how armed men managed to enter the prison and kill the four policemen.
Witnesses said they had seen armed men entering the prison after visitors were forced to leave by the guards, the Associated Press reported.
The policemen were gunned down on Sunday inside the Boqueron prison in Cuilapa, some 40 miles (70km) east of Guatemala City.
The four men killed included the head of the country’s organised crime unit, Luis Arturo Herrera, and three of his colleagues.
The Guatemalan president said the murders of the four men had robbed prosecutors of key evidence about who had carried out the politicians’ killing.
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