MEXICO CITY — Gunmen burst in to a Starbucks coffee shop Tuesday and shot and killed a former police officer who was a protected witness in a drug corruption case, the second death of a high-profile witness in Mexico in less than two weeks.
Edgar Bayardo and a man with him was severely wounded, city prosecutor Jaime Slomianski Aguilar said. Another customer who apparently had nothing to do with Bayardo also was wounded.
Shell casings — numbered by police at up to 23 — lay on the shop floor between the door and the counter. The killing bore all the hallmarks of an organized crime execution.
Bayardo was detained in 2008 on suspicion of collaborating with the powerful Sinaloa drug cartel, as part of a large-scale cleanup of drug corruption that reached high into Mexican federal police and prosecutor’s office.
Soon after, Bayardo was released from house arrest and declared a protected witness, said federal and local prosecutors.
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