In brief: Gunmen kill priest, two seminarians
ACAPULCO, Mexico – Gunmen ordered a priest and two seminarians out of their vehicle and shot them dead in a drug-plagued region of western Mexico, authorities said Monday.
The three were killed as they drove through the town of Arcelia in Guerrero state to nearby Ciudad Altamirano to organize a spiritual retreat, said the archbishop of Acapulco, Felipe Aguirre Franco.
Erit Montufar, Guerrero’s director of investigative police, said no arrests have been made and no motive has been determined for the killings, which took place Saturday.
Also Monday, Mexico’s attorney general’s office said it charged 51 guards and prison officials, including the director, for their complicity in the escape of 53 inmates from a jail in Zacatecas state.
Security camera footage showed that guards at the Cieneguillas prison stood by as an armed gang walked out with the 53 inmates on May 16.
About a dozen of the fugitives are drug cartel suspects.
The office also said it has arrested 9 midlevel military officers turned over to them by the army for passing information to the Sinaloa drug cartel.
Afghans arrest news producers
KABUL, Afghanistan – Al-Jazeera called for the immediate release of two of its Afghan producers after they were arrested by Afghan intelligence agents. The network said it has been unable to contact them.
Qais Azimy and Hamedullah Shah, who work for the network’s English and Arabic services, have been held by Afghan authorities since Sunday, the station said Monday in a statement.
“Al-Jazeera is officially requesting information from the Afghan authorities and is calling for Qais and Hamedullah’s immediate release,” it said.
It was unclear why the two were arrested.
In a news report over the weekend from the northern Afghan province of Kunduz, Al-Jazeera showed Azimy meeting with Taliban fighters and interviewing a Taliban commander who said that he was in charge of hundreds of men and had 12 suicide bombers waiting to strike.
Afghan authorities may have been angered by the report, Al-Jazeera correspondent David Chater said in a statement.