El Salvador envoys slain in Guatemala

3 lawmakers were on trade mission

By Hector Tobar and Alex Renderos

Tribune Newspapers
Published February 21, 2007

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador -- Three Salvadoran legislators, including a scion of one of the country's leading right-wing families, were kidnapped and slain during a trip to neighboring Guatemala and their bodies set ablaze, officials said Tuesday.

The congressional deputies were all members of the right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance and were killed Monday night along with their driver as they paid an official visit to Guatemala City. Their charred bodies and gutted vehicle were found on a farm outside the city.

"The scene is Dantesque," said Julio Rank, a spokesman for Salvadoran President Tony Saca. Rank traveled to the scene late Monday. "The vehicle is filled with bullet holes and has four burned bodies inside. . . . The motive was not robbery."

Among the dead was Eduardo Jose D'Aubuisson, 32, son of the late Roberto D'Aubuisson, founder of the right-wing alliance. Also killed were legislators William Pichinte and Jose Ramon Gonzalez.

The killings come amid a wave of lawlessness in Guatemala, which has become a haven for organized crime and a way station for the transshipment of illicit drugs from South America to the U.S., according to American officials.

The three legislators had left San Salvador by car early Monday for a meeting in Guatemala City of the Central American Parliament, a body that seeks to promote and regulate trade in the region.

Investigators said the three legislators traveled with other Salvador officials to Guatemala City in a four-car caravan. After crossing the border, the caravan was escorted by the Guatemalan National Police. Once in Guatemala City, the caravan broke up and the legislators left behind their police escort.

The charred bodies were discovered about 20 miles outside Guatemala City near the village of El Jocotillo when local residents called firefighters to report a vehicle was in flames.

Officials in El Salvador and Guatemala said high-caliber weapons were used in the attack and that the victims likely were dead before their car was set ablaze.

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