MEXICAN RIGHTS ACTIVIST KILLED

A leading human rights activist who had been demanding that the government
clean up organized crime in Mexico's drug-ridden Sinaloa state has been
shot to death, authorities announced Friday. Jorge Aguirre Meza, a lawyer
and president of the state bar, was among four activists who campaigned
against police torture and abuse in 1990, leading to the creation of the
National Human Rights Commission. He is the third of the four activists to
be killed.

Four masked men dressed in black ambushed Aguirre Meza and shot him outside
his home in Navolato late Wednesday. No arrests have been made. Aguirre,
39, was an ex-police officer, town council member and a member of the
leftist Democratic Revolution Party. [N601]