Mexico City - Armed assailants on Monday shot and wounded a former governor of the Pacific state of Colima, state prosecutors in Mexico said, marking another troublesome event in the region's history with recent leaders.
Fernando Moreno Peña, a member of President Enrique Pena Nieto's Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), who was Colima's governor from 1997 to 2003, was shot Monday morning in a restaurant in the city of Colima, the state capital, a spokesman for state prosecutors said.
Local media said Moreno was shot in the neck, though the spokesman said it was unclear how serious his condition was, or why he had been attacked.
Moreno was taken to the hospital after the shooting.
Moreno's successor as governor, Gustavo Vazquez Montes, died in a plane crash in February 2005, while Silverio Cavazos, who was elected to succeed Vazquez, was shot dead by gunmen in November 2010, about a year after his term ended.
A small state, Colima is home to Mexico's biggest container port, Manzanillo, making it a point of strategic interest for powerful drug gangs that operate on the Pacific coast.
Reuters