- guardian.co.uk,
- Wednesday November 05 2008 13.54 GMT
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Mexico's interior minister has died in a plane crash, after the small aircraft he was travelling in plummeted into rush hour traffic in the nation's capital.
A father of three, Juan Camilo Mouriño, 37, was viewed as a rising star in Mexican politics. He was one of the architects of conservative Felipe Calderón's 2006 election victory.
Seven other people were killed and 40 injured when the government Learjet smashed into the streets of Mexico City yesterday, setting several cars ablaze, Reuters reported.
Calderon described Mouriño as "a compatriot who worked for the service of his county".
Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos, the deputy attorney-general until recently and a key player for years in the war on drug cartels, also died in the crash.
Communications minister Luis Tellez said everything pointed to the crash being an accident but Jorge Lara, vice-president of a national civil aviation rescue committee, told Reuters "It could have been anything, from mechanical failure to sabotage."
A colleague of Lara at the scene said it appeared that something happened to the plane in the air and it nosedived into the ground. There was little damage to surrounding buildings.
Mexican radio reported an air traffic controller as saying the aircraft had been coming in to land at Mexico City airport when it hit the ground between tall office buildings.
Tellez said there was no contact with the plane, which had been returning from a trip to the central city of San Luis Potosí, in the moments before the crash.
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