Eduardo Enrique Castro Luque (12 December 1963 – 14 September 2012) was a Mexican politician affiliated with the

Institutional Revolutionary Party The Institutional Revolutionary Party (, , PRI) is a List of political parties in Mexico, political party in Mexico that was founded in 1929 as the National Revolutionary Party (, PNR), then as the Party of the Mexican Revolution (, PRM) and fin ...

(PRI). At the time of his killing, he was a deputy-elect from

Ciudad Obregón, Sonora Ciudad () is the Spanish word for "city". Ciudad or La Ciudad may also refer to: * La Ciudad (archaeological site), Hohokam ruins in Phoenix, Arizona * La Ciudad, district of Durango City, Mexico * ''La ciudad'', a novel by Mario Levrero published ...

, to the

Congress of Sonora The Honorable Congress of the State of Sonora () is the legislative branch of the government of the Mexican state of Sonora. The Congress is the governmental deliberative body of Sonora, which is equal to, and independent of, the executive. T ...

. Born and raised in Ciudad Obregón, Castro Luque ran for office in his municipality and was elected to the Sonora state legislature on 1 July 2012. Before running for office, he had served as the marketing manager of the

Yaquis de Obregón The Yaquis de Obregón () are a professional baseball team based in Ciudad Obregón, Sonora, Mexico. They compete in the Mexican Pacific League (LMP). The team plays at the Estadio Yaquis with a capacity of 16,500 seated spectators. The team h ...

baseball team in his hometown and was working at his privately owned publicity agency. On 14 September 2012, two days before taking office, he was gunned down outside his home by gunmen. He was later pronounced dead at a local hospital. Northern Mexico has been the scene of violent confrontations between Mexico's drug gangs. The recent wave of violence in Ciudad Obregón is attributed to the

Sinaloa Cartel The Sinaloa Cartel (, , after the native Sinaloa region), also known as the ''CDS'', the ''Guzmán-Loera Organization'', the ''Federation'', the ''Sinaloa Cartel'', or the Pacific Cartel, is a large, drug trafficking transnational organized cri ...

and the Beltrán-Leyva Cartel, which fight for the control of retail drug sales and the smuggling routes leading to the United States.

Personal life

Eduardo Enrique Castro Luque was born on 12 December 1963 in the northern Mexican city of

. He was married to Rossana Coboj and had one boy named Eduardo. He held a bachelor's degree in Business administration from the

Sonora Institute of Technology The Sonora Institute of Technology (in ) is a Mexican public university based in Ciudad Obregón, Sonora, with satellite campuses in Guaymas, Empalme and Navojoa. Founded in 1955 as a preparatory school called Justo Sierra Institute (''Institu ...

. The 48-year-old politician had never held a political office before he was elected on 1 July 2012. Prior to running for office, Castro Luque owned a publicity agency and was the marketing manager of the

baseball team in his hometown.

Assassination

Initial reports stated that on 14 September 2012 at around 20:55 local time, Castro Luque was returning home at Chapultepec neighborhood in Ciudad Obregón. Unaware of the assailant, the deputy-elect got out of his car and made a few steps towards the house entrance when an unknown gunman shot at him nine times, hitting vital organs. Nonetheless, according to the investigation of the Office of the Attorney General of Sonora (PJGE), the gunman faked a malfunction in his motorcycle when Castro Luque was coming back from a meeting held in

Hermosillo Hermosillo (), formerly called Pitic (as in ''Santísima Trinidad del Pitic'' and ''Presidio del Pitic''), is a city in the center of the northwestern Mexican state of Sonora. It is the municipal seat of the Hermosillo municipality, the state's ...

prior to his installation as a state deputy. The assassin then asked Castro Luque for tool support and then shot him at close range. Once they had materialized the attack, the killer fled the scene in a motorcycle. Castro Luque was taken to a local hospital by his wife and young son while still being alive, but was declared dead an hour later. He was scheduled to take office as a Sonora's state Legislature in just two days. The Municipal Police of Cajeme, Sonora, reported that Castro Luque's front house door had been forced open and that some people had stolen his laptop a day before the assassination. At the scene, the police found six .45 millimeter bullet casings, as well as six warheads from the same caliber, that will help the office of the Sonora attorney general (PGJE) as evidence for the investigation.

Funeral

At 3:00 p.m. during a religious ceremony in the Cathedral of Ciudad Obregón, friends, supporters, politicians, and several citizens of the municipality gathered to pay homage to Castro Luque. Bishop Felipe Padilla celebrated mass with over 900 attendees.

Background

Since the start of Mexico's drug war, northern Mexico has been the scene of numerous battles between several drug trafficking organizations fighting for the control of the local drug markets and the smuggling routes leading to the United States. The municipality of Cajeme, Sonora – where Castro Luque was killed – is reportedly under dispute between two drug groups: the

and the Beltrán-Leyva Cartel. In August 2012,

Édgar Morales Pérez Édgar Morales Pérez was the mayor-elect of Matehuala, San Luis Potosí, Mexico, elected on July 1, 2012. He was a member of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and the Ecologist Green Party of Mexico (PVEM), which are in a coalition in h ...

, the mayor-elect of a town in

San Luis Potosí San Luis Potosí, officially the Free and Sovereign State of San Luis Potosí, is one of the 32 states which compose the Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 59 municipalities and is named after its capital city, San Luis Potosí. It ...

, was ambushed and killed by gunmen before taking office. Just like Castro Luque, Morales Pérez was a member of the

(PRI).

Investigation and arrests

The Attorney General of Sonora established a special investigation group to carry out the inquiry of Castro Luque's assassination. On 24 September 2012, the PGJE indicated that Manuel Ernesto Fernández Félix, the alternate deputy for Ciudad Obregón, ordered the assassination of Castro Luque so he could go into office. (In Mexico, political candidates have to appoint an alternate person (''suplente'') to take over their duties if they die or are unable to serve.) Sonora authorities accused Fernández Félix of paying a hitman more than US$3000 to carry out the attack and of paying around US$750 to the person who helped him find the assassin. Fernández Félix is currently a fugitive, while the other five implicated in the assassination are arrested.

Interpol The International Criminal Police Organization – INTERPOL (abbreviated as ICPO–INTERPOL), commonly known as Interpol ( , ; stylized in allcaps), is an international organization that facilitates worldwide police cooperation and crime cont ...

and authorities in Mexico and the United States are currently looking for the alternate deputy in over 190 countries. Several water-rights activists, however, question the theory of the Mexican prosecutors that the assassination was carried out by Castro Luque's substitute. The activists of the Citizen Movement for Water stated that Castro Luque had launched a massive political campaign against a water project in Ciudad Obregón, and criticized the state government for constructing an aqueduct despite the judicial orders to suspend it. They allege that since the state of Sonora is ruled by the National Action Party (PAN), the investigation is too biased to be executed properly. Politicians in the

(PRI) also expressed their doubts on the theory of the state prosecutors of the PAN administration.

Legacy

Several organizations carried out a "mega march" in Ciudad Obregón in memory of Castro Luque on 26 September 2012.

References

External links

Eduardo Castro Luque
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Eduardo Castro Luque
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Milenio ''Milenio'' is a major national newspaper in Mexico, owned by Grupo Multimedios. It is published in 11 cities across Mexico, including Monterrey, Mexico City, Guadalajara, León, Pachuca, Puebla, Villahermosa, Tampico, Torreón, Toluca, an ...

'' (Video) {{DEFAULTSORT:Castro, Eduardo 1963 births 2012 deaths Institutional Revolutionary Party politicians Mexican murder victims Assassinated Mexican politicians Deaths by firearm in Mexico People from Ciudad Obregón Politicians from Sonora 21st-century Mexican politicians 2012 murders in Mexico Sonora Institute of Technology alumni North American politicians assassinated in the 2010s Politicians assassinated in 2012