9 pollsters free after disappearing in west Mexico
Posted on Wednesday, 08.03.11
By MARK STEVENSON
Associated Press
MORELIA, Mexico -- Nine Mexican polling company workers were released Wednesday, several days after they were apparently kidnapped in a western region plagued by drug-cartel violence.
The polling firm Parametria said its three employees were released Tuesday morning, hours after six working for Consulta Mitofsky were let go in the area near the city of Apatzingan where they disappeared.
No one has said who is responsible for seizing the nine. Michoacan state Public Safety Secretary Gen. Manuel Garcia Ruiz said the six who disappeared Saturday were simply left by their captors Wednesday on a roadside in an area being disputed between the La Familia and Knights Templar cartels.
"It could be the groups that are operating there ... because it is a zone of conflict," Garcia Ruiz said.
But he stressed that "none of the polling workers were beaten, no ransom demand was made for any of them," Garcia Ruiz said. "The most likely thing is that they were held to find out who sent them and what they really wanted."
More:
http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/08/03/2344102/9-pollsters-free-after-disappearing.html