** Originally published on April 22 at World Now:
MEXICO CITY -- A gunman has shot and killed a retired Mexican army general at a garage in Mexico City, authorities said.
Gen. Mario Acosta Chaparro was accused in 2000 of ties to the Juarez drug cartel in northern Mexico, but later exonerated. A lone gunman shot him three times in the upper body late Friday afternoon at a garage in the Anahuac district, on Mexico City's central-west side, authorities said. Witnesses said the gunman then fled on a motorcycle, the Mexico City attorney general's office reported.
Acosta, 70, who survived a shooting attempt in 2010, is the second retired general to be assassinated in Mexico City in the last year.
In May 2011, retired Gen. Jorge Juarez Loera was shot in Ciudad Satelite, a northwest suburb. Theoutspoken general had overseen Joint Operation Chihuahua, a military-led campaign targeting drug traffickers in the northern border state of Chihuahua, where Ciudad Juarez, the violence-plagued base of the Juarez cartel, is located.
Acosta Chaparro was accused in 2000 of ties to the late Amado Carrillo Fuentes, who for years led the Juarez cartel. Acosta Chaparro was sentenced by a military tribunal in 2002 to a minimum of 15 years in prison for ties to drug traffickers. The federal attorney general's office exonerated him in 2007, and the general retired in 2008, reports said.
Mexico City Atty. Gen. Jesus Rodriguez Almeida told reporters Friday evening that authorities had not yet established a motive for the killing, and that his office would continue its investigation.
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* Photo: Retired Gen. Mario Acosta Chaparro is escorted by military police into a military court trial Oct. 31, 2002, in Mexico City. Credit: Victor R. Caivano / Associated Press
