In Mexico kidnapping, brutal extreme

Javier Morena, 5, who was kidnapped and killed with an injection of acid into his heart, was mourned yesterday. (Gregory Bull/Associated Press)

MEXICO CITY - Kidnappers grabbed a 5-year-old boy from a gritty Mexico City street market, then killed him by injecting acid into his heart - a new low even for Mexico's brutal gangs.

The boy, Javier Morena, was the oldest son of a poor family that sold fruit at a market in the neighborhood of Iztapalapa.

Javier disappeared while playing at the market Oct. 26, Mexico City authorities said yesterday. A local television station posted his picture on the news last Wednesday.

A taxi driver recognized the boy, and went to the market to find the family. He told them that he had given the boy and a teenager a ride from the market to nearby Mexico state.

The family showed the driver a picture of their son, which happened to include the 17-year-old family friend and kidnapper. The driver confirmed that the pictured teen had taken the boy.

The police raided the 17-year-old's home, and he and his family and two others confessed to having killed the boy before they could ask for a 300,000-peso ($23,000) ransom, Mexico City Attorney General Miguel Mancera said in a statement.

Mancera said the assailants injected the boy with acid and buried him outside the capital.

Five suspects, including the 17-year-old, are under arrest.

Javier's family buried him early yesterday. Hours later, sitting in her home of cinderblock and corrugated tin, the boy's mother, Laura Vega, said the kidnappers should face the death penalty and should "suffer the way my son suffered."

ASSOCIATED PRESS