Acid injection used to kill boy, 5
Kidnappers killed a five-year-old boy by injecting him with acid after his family sought police help - a new low even for Mexico's brutal kidnapping gangs.
Mexico City Attorney General Miguel Mancera said that assailants injected the acid into the boy's heart and buried him on a hill outside the capital in a killing that highlights the plague of kidnappings for ransom.
A kidnapper seized the child at a street market in the gritty borough of Iztapalapa on October 26 and the boy was killed three days later, Mr Mancera's office said in a statement.
Prosecutors said the kidnapper hailed a taxi to carry the child to a house in neighbouring Mexico State. The taxi driver later saw the boy's image on a television announcement seeking information on the kidnapping and returned to the market to alert the child's parents.
Authorities said the kidnappers asked for £14,500 in ransom but killed the child after hearing police were looking for him.
Anti-kidnapping prosecutor Juan Maya told Reforma newspaper that the abductors knew the boy's parents, who he said are street vendors in Iztapalapa, but spokespeople for the agency could not immediately confirm that.
Mr Mancera said five suspected kidnappers, including a 17-year-old, have been arrested.
The child's death recalled the recent kidnap and murder of Fernando Marti, the 14-year-old son of a sporting goods magnate whose death prompted a national outcry against crime.
Marti's decomposing body was found in the trunk of a car even though his family reportedly paid a ransom. Prosecutors said a federal politician was part of the gang that kidnapped Marti.
Outrage over that case prompted more than 100,000 people to march through Mexico City in August to demand an end to endemic police corruption and rising crime.
