Two gunmen with automatic weapons fatally shot an honorary Belgian consul to Honduras late Wednesday as he drove his car in the country’s second-largest city. Arnulfo Gutierrez’s wife, Maria del Carmen Rapalo, was abducted 51 days ago and her kidnappers may have instructed him to meet them to discuss ransom demands, said Danilo Valladres, the case’s lead investigator. The suspects ambushed Gutierrez’s car, spraying it with bullets before fleeing on foot to a getaway car. They remained at large, Valladres said. The slaying happened in the central El Benque section of San Pedro Sula, Honduras’ most violent city, 110 miles north of Tegucigalpa, the capital. Gutierrez, 62, was a prominent banker and stock broker and represented a string of multinational banks in northern Honduras. Belgium’s government named him an honorary consul at least eight years ago, but officials at the Belgian embassy in Tegucigalpa could not be reached to confirm his length in the post. Gutierrez’s wife, a 57-year-old primary school teacher, was kidnapped March 18 as she left a San Pedro Sula beauty parlor. Full Story
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