Face of Mexico's drug war dies in chopper crash.
The country's top Cabinet secretary, Francisco Blake Mora, a key figure in Mexico's battle with drug cartels, died Friday in a helicopter crash that President Felipe Calderon said was probably an accident.
The Presidency spokeswoman, Alejandra Sota, said authorities located the bodies of the secretary and seven others. They included Interior Undersecretary Felipe Zamora, said agency spokesman Jose Alfredo Garcia.
Mexican President Felipe Calderon, who appointed Blake Mora as interior secretary in July 2010, said the Super Puma helicopter was flying in fog when it went down in a remote area southeast of Mexico City. Still, he said all possible causes were under investigation. He said the pilot had sufficient expertise.
"Mexico has lost a great patriot ... and I lost a dear friend," said Calderon, who struggled to maintain composure at one point during an address to the country. "He was not only an exemplary minister, he was an exemplary Mexican."
President Barack Obama called Calderon to offer his condolences.
Calderon appeared to try to quell any suggestions of sabotage, saying Blake Mora's helicopter "was always under guard" in the hangar of Mexico's equivalent of the Secret Service and that it had recently undergone maintenance.
Blake Mora was traveling to a prosecutors' meeting in the neighboring state of Morelos when the helicopter went down in a mountainous area of Mexico state southeast of Mexico City.
The secretary of the interior is the country's top official after the president, overseeing internal political affairs and security, making him a key figure in directing the battle against drug cartels, as well as negotiating with opposition political parties and with the legislature.
President Felipe Calderon lost Interior Secretary Juan Camilo Mourino in the crash of a Learjet in Mexico City on Nov. 4, 2008. Despite widespread speculation that that accident, which killed 14, was caused by sabotage, investigators eventually ruled that out and blamed pilot error.
8 comments:
Xin Loi, Senor!
The Sinaloa Cartel
Puts me in mind of the Clinton years.
We may soonstart to see these kind of coincidences happen to people like Melson, Brueur, Newell, and others.
Not that this would be a tragic loss but it would spoil any further investigation into the current scandal.
KPN3%
Uh... suicide?
Hilary is around somewhere ;-)
Ex-Libyan SA-7's coming home to roost?
"Calderon appeared to try to quell any suggestions of sabotage, saying Blake Mora's helicopter "was always under guard" in the hangar of Mexico's equivalent of the Secret Service and that it had recently undergone maintenance."
....recently sabotaged during maintenance....
I'm wondering if Calderon is getting a share of the drug money?
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