Mexico News-June6

Posted by The Generals on June 8, 2011, 12:46 am
206.116.64.118

Subject: Mexico News DAILY June 06, 2011 LatinNews Daily - 06 June 2011 Hank Rhon arrested in Tijuana Development: On 4 June Mexico’s federal authorities arrested Jorge Hank Rhon, a former mayor of Tijuana, for possession of heavy weapons. Significance: Hank is politically powerful in the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI). Two senators loyal to Andrés Manuel López Obrador, a radical who was defeated by President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa in the 2006 elections, immediately accused Calderón of using the government to interfere in the 2012 elections. Key points: • Hank claimed that the weapons were planted on him by the feds. When four people, including Hank’s bodyguard, were arrested on similar charges in October 2009, they got off because they could prove they had permits for the heavy weapons: these permits were authorised by the Estado de México, which is run by Enrique Peña Nieto (PRI), the leading candidate for the presidency in 2012. • Hank’s arrest apparently involved the dispatch of a special army squad from Mexico City to surround his house in Tijuana. • Hank’s father, Carlos Hank González, was the PRI’s kingmaker in the 1970s and 1980s. Jorge’s brother, also named Carlos, briefly campaigned for the PRI nomination for the governorship of the Estado, won by Peña Nieto in 2005. In 2007, Jorge Hank Rhon ran, unsuccessfully, for the governorship of Baja California Norte, which borders the US.

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