Re: mejia's men kill 2 PLD/reports from AP
The bodyguards of the leading presidential candidate shot and killed a governing party official and another man in what the opposition claimed was a response to an assassination attempt.
The most violent confrontation yet in the campaign was an indication of rising tensions and the high stakes involved in May 16 elections in this Caribbean nation of eight million people.
The opposition Dominican Revolutionary Party said someone shot Saturday night at the car of its presidential candidate, Hipolito Mejia, and that his security guards returned fire, killing two men.
But President Leonel Fernandez's Dominican Liberation Party said the security guards shot first.
The shooting took place in Moca, 90 miles from the capital, as Mejia's car was passing in front of the house of Luis Terrero Gil, 41, a local official of the Liberation Party.
Terrero, the director of the National Center for Science and Art, was killed, as was Rafael Penalo, 29, who was on the street in front of the house along with other supporters of the Liberation Party.
Francisco Javier Garcia, Liberation Party campaign manager, denied anybody shot at Mejia's car and said the killings were ``a premeditated assassination.''
He said Terrero was on the patio when the shooting erupted. Terrero called out to his three children to come in from a small garden in front of the house, and was then struck by eight bullets, he said.
Garcia charged that members of the opposition party then invaded the house and beat up Terrero's wife and a son.
The Revolutionary Party said it was an assassination attempt against its candidate.
``We understand that it was something prepared, premeditated against Hipolito, because it was against the car he was in,'' Sen. Andres Bautista, a party member, was quoted as saying in Hoy, a daily newspaper.
Mejia is a left-leaning politician who has threatened, if he wins, to prosecute leading members of the government for alleged corruption. Government supporters fear a Mejia victory could derail and reverse the great economic strides made by the current administration, which has overseen a 50 percent expansion in the Dominican economy through privatizing state companies and streamlining bureaucracy to encourage international trade.
Recent polls have shown Mejia leading with 40 to 50 percent of the vote, with rest divided between the two other candidates - Danilo Medina of the Liberation Party and former President Joaquin Balaguer of the Social Christian Reformist Party.
Fernandez, the current president, is barred by law for running for another term.
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Dominican police arrested seven people for the slayings of two men by bodyguards for the country's leading presidential candidate, an official said Monday.
Thirteen other people were questioned and released in Saturday's killings, said Lt. Col. Nelson Rosario. Police refused to provide more details.
Bodyguards for Hipolito Mejia, the opposition Dominican Revolutionary Party candidate for president, shot and killed Luis Terrero Gil, 41, an official in the governing Dominican Liberation Party and director of the National Center for Science and Art.
Also slain was Rafael Penalo, 29, a Liberation Party supporter. The shootings occurred during a rally for Mejia in Moca, 85 miles from Santo Domingo, the capital.
Terrero Gil and Penalo were buried in Moca on Monday.
The seven arrested are local Revolutionary Party members, party official Janet Lugo said Monday. It wasn't immediately known if they included the security guards.
The Revolutionary Party claims Mejia's car was fired upon as it was passing by Terrero Gil's house and that Mejia's guards returned fire.
``We were victims of an assassination attempt. Unfortunately, we had to respond,'' Lugo said.
The ruling party says the security guards shot first and that members of the opposition party then invaded the house, killed Terrero and beat up his wife and a son.
``Why would we make such an attempt from the house of a man who was in shorts and no shirt, with his children and his wife in the house?'' Ramon Fadul, a Liberation Party central committee member, said Monday.
Mejia is a left-leaning politician who has threatened to prosecute leading members of the government for alleged corruption if he wins.
Government supporters fear a Mejia victory could reverse progress made by the administration of Leonel Fernandez, which has overseen a 50 percent expansion in the economy by privatizing state companies and encouraging trade.
Fernandez is barred by law from running for another term in the May 16 election, and Danilo Medina is running as the Liberation Party candidate. Also competing in the election is former President Joaquin Balaguer of the Social Christian Reformist Party
from AP
