Mexico: New interior minister named

Mexican President Felipe Calderon named a new interior minister in order to replace Juan Camilo Mourino who died in a plane crash last Tuesday.

Calderon said today that he was “convinced” that former congressman and “little-known lawyer” Fernando Francisco Gomez Mont was the best choice for the powerful law enforcement post. Nonetheless, one political analyst considered Mont as “the least well known” option for several high-level duties including supervising national security and the war on drugs.

Mexican aviation authorities have so far “ruled out” that a bomb took the life of Mourino along with twelve others. Yet with the mystery of the 1994 high-profile assassination of Luis Donaldo Colosio in the minds of many, it should come as no surprise that Mexicans believe sabotage was behind Mourino’s death:

A survey published this morning by the Milenio newspaper here in Mexico reports that more than half of all Mexicans -- 56% -- won't believe that the plane crash last week that killed the country's interior minister was an accident, even if a government investigation declares it so.

Furthermore, 48% of respondents said that if the government investigation into the crash does in fact find that foul play was at work, the authorities will bury the facts. Of the remaining respondents, 41% said that the government would inform the public if foul play was found, but that it would hide some of the details, and the other 8% said that they didn't know.

Image- AP
Sources- Bloomberg, CNN, SignOnSanDiego.com, BBC News, La Plaza