WORLD : Ex-Defense Chief Slain in Peru
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LIMA, Peru — Assailants believed to be leftist guerrillas shot and killed the former Peruvian defense minister today as he was parking his car in a Lima suburb, officials said.
A spokesman for the Interior Ministry said four people with submachine guns sprayed Enrique Lopez’s car with gunfire near a shopping center in San Isidro, two miles south of downtown Lima.
Lopez was the country’s first defense minister. He was appointed in 1987 by President Alan Garcia when the ministry was formed. He was replaced last May by Gen. Julio Velasquez.
No group claimed responsibility for the assassination, but the attack was similar in style to those of the Maoist Shining Path, a radical guerrilla group that has been fighting Peru’s elected governments since 1980.
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