State Offices Attacked, Records Burned

(Acapulco, NA 8 March) Yesterday at 11:00 pm three armed commandos forced their way into the state office building in the Laja area of Acapulco. After tying up the watchman, they sprinkled gasoline on all the files they could find, and then set the whole place on fire. Then they fled.

Police and fire personnel hurried to the scene. No suspects were detained. No one was injured. The fire was extinguished, but the records were burned.

Military sources said that the gunmen first searched for something before setting a match to everything they could find.

The building housed documents of the Secretary of Public Health. It was in this department that state auditors recently announced an embezzlement of $150 million pesos, which sum was preliminarily traced to Governor Torreblanca himself.

Immediately the public suspected that high-ranking officials in the outgoing governor´s administration were responsible for the break-in, somewhat in the style of Watergate under Richard Nixon. So far no explanations have been given, and no denials made.