Mexican mayoral candidate murdered in public event

Alleged hit-men have murdered Enrique Hernandez Salcedo, a mayoral candidate for Yurecuaro and former leader of a self-defence group in Mexico's southwestern state of Michoacan, Sp[anish news agency Efe reported.

Hernandez, from the leftist National Regeneration Movement (Morena) was murdered Thursday night by an armed group while giving a speech in Yurecuaro, security officials and party representatives told Efe, while witnesses said that armed men used assault rifles to shoot Hernandez from a moving car.

Three others attending the event were wounded, two identified as Alicia Torres Vargas and Gustavo Javier Martinez, while the third was reported to be in serious condition at a regional hospital.

Hernandez took up arms in February 2013 with a vigilant group in Yurecuaro to check the Knights Templars cartel, and in March was arrested with 19 of his men on charges of the murder of Gustavo Garibay, mayor of Tanhuato municipality, next to Yurecuaro.

He was kept in in a maximum security prison until a judge ordered his release in June 2013 due to lack of evidence, after which he became a leader of another vigilante group to contest elections after Hipolito Mora was eyeing a federal congressional post.

Mora said in an interview on Milenio Television on Thursday night that Hernandez's murder showed the risks faced by "some people who affect the interests of some very powerful people".

Before Congress on Thursday morning, Michoacan Governor Salvador Jara dismissed the presence of any "red flags" in the state in the run-up to the elections in June, yet in a television interview Thursday night, Jara lamented that violence had returned to haunt the state of Michoacan.

Hernandez's party colleague Miguel Angel Sandoval Rodriguez told reporters that the murder was a "state crime" and demanded Jara's immediate resignation.

Sandoval warned that the upcoming elections would be "difficult and blood-stained" and said that he would present on Friday proof of a certain party having threatened Hernandez.