Prominent Mexican vigilante leader slain in violent attack

The prominent leader of a vigilante group in the western Mexican state of Michoacan was slain on Thursday, the local government said, in a brutal attack that left his body so badly burned that it was almost unrecognizable.

The state attorney general's office said at around midday it received word of an attack on Hipolito Mora in the town of Felipe Carrillo Puerto in western Michoacan. Mora founded a so-called self-defense group that rose to prominence a decade ago with a declared aim of protecting the area from a predatory drug gang in the violent state.

The Michoacan attorney general's office said when officials arrived at the scene they discovered two destroyed truck and a badly burned body, which was presumed to be Mora.

Three other bodies were found at the scene. Prosecutors said they believed Mora had been traveling with a security detail when he came under attack by assailants who then fled.

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Michoacan's governor, Alfredo Ramirez Bedolla, confirmed Mora's death. On Twitter he called the attack on Mora and local police officers a "cowardly killing," and promised to bring those responsible to justice.

A number of Mexican states plagued by chronic violent crime have given rise to self-defense groups, which defend their existence on the grounds that authorities have been ineffective.

In 2014, a group of self-defense groups, including Mora's, forged a short-lived pact with the federal government to create a regulated rural defense force against organized crime.

Mora, 67, had stepped back from his role in the self-defense group in recent years, but told Reuters recently that he planned to take up arms again to deal with a surge of crime in the region.