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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Former Mexican Prosecutor Killed

New York Times

A former federal prosecutor was shot to death Wednesday as he jogged on a public running track in Tijuana, Mexico.

The prosecutor, Jose Arturo Ochoa Palacios, who headed the attorney general’s office in the Baja California until May 1994, was shot four times in the head and abdomen at close range and died where he fell. Investigators said two young men ran alongside Ochoa and one fired the shots.

Although Ochoa worked most recently for the postal service, when he was federal prosecutor he had been responsible for anti-drug investigations in one of the major smuggling points for narcotics.

He was also the chief federal law-enforcement official in Tijuana on March 23, 1994, when Luis Donaldo Colosio, the ruling party’s presidential candidate, was assassinated.

Ochoa was one of the first officials to question Mario Aburto Martinez, who was detained at the site and later convicted of killing the candidate.