The body of a former state legislator was found in the northern Mexican state of Nuevo Leon four days after he was kidnapped by gunmen, state prosecutors said Wednesday.Hernan Belden Elizondo’s body was discovered on Tuesday at La Huasteca park in the city of Santa Catarina, the Nuevo Leon Attorney General’s Office said in a statement.
The 45-year-old Belden Elizondo was a member of the conservative National Action Party, or PAN.
Belden Elizondo was kidnapped last Friday, but “no money was ever demanded” for his release, the AG’s office said, adding that he was killed the same day.
The disappearance of the former state legislator, who died from a blow to the head, was reported by San Pedro Mayor Mauricio Fernandez.
A person who was on the phone with Belden Elizondo at the time of his abduction from his business in Santa Catarina revealed that the crime had occurred, Fernandez told Mexican television.
Officials, however, said Tuesday that the former lawmaker was abducted in Doctores, a neighborhood on the city limits between San Pedro and Monterrey, the capital of Nuevo Leon.
Belden Elizondo, who served in the Nuevo Leon state legislature from 2009 until Aug. 31, owned a company that makes plastic products.
The Los Zetas cartel has been battling the Gulf cartel for control of the Monterrey metropolitan area and smuggling routes into the United States.
The wave of drug-related violence in Nuevo Leon claimed the lives of 2,003 people in 2011, official figures show.
Source: EFE
