Kidnappers kill victim

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34133, 21 April 1976, Page 15

Kidnappers kill victim

(N.Z.P. A. Reuter—Copyright) BOGOTA (Colombia), April 20. Colombian terrorists fired two bullets into the heart of a kidnapped labour leader today, to cast a shadow over the law-and-order Government’s solid victory in the nation’s mid-term elections. The slaying of Mr Jose Raquel Mercado, aged 61, the anti-Communist president of the Colombian Workers’ Confederation, which has 1 million members, was deliberately timed to dim Colombia’s image as one of South America’s two surviving democracies, political sources say. The little-known Ml 9 guerrilla group kidnapped Mr Mercado in February, accused him of selling out the interests of Colombian workers to “American Imperialism,” and sentenced him to death. The terrorists propped the body, wrapped in a plastic bag and a blanket, against a lamp-post in a Bogota park, and then telephoned reporters, to tell them where to find it. The ruling Liberal and Conservative Parties piled up huge margins over the Communist Opposition in the elections for state assembly and municipal council seats.