Peru’s Interior Ministry said it has identified individuals behind last month’s killing of a prison warden in the northern city of Trujillo.
The ministry said that it arrested a 33-year-old woman who was an accomplice to the brazen daylight killing. It also said it has identified the intellectual author of the killing, who is allegedly a 42-year-old prison inmate, Jose Antonio Grozo.
Grozo is currently serving a sentence in the El Milagros jail, which was run by the slain warden, Jorge Izquierdo. Police believe that Grozo, who was a member of a gang called La Jauria, ordered the killing after confrontations with members of the penitentiary institute.
Izquierdo was gunned down while he ate lunch with several other members of the national penitentiary institute in Trujillo.
The killing was the latest in a series of high-profile assassinations of authorities in Peru’s provinces this year that have raised concerns that crime is out of control.
The latest incident occured on Monday in Lima, when the mayor of the San Juan de Miraflores district survived an assassination attempt. Two of the mayor’s bodyguards were injured in the incident.
President Ollanta Humala’s approval rating has declined to an all-time low in October in good part due to the perception among Peru’s population the the government isn’t doing enough to combate crime.
Cesar Villanueva, the country’s new premier, said Monday that the government would tackle crime head on.
