Mexican minister says six killed were friends, not family

0 Comments | AFP, July, 2008

MEXICO CITY (AFP) — Mexican Agriculture Minister Alberto Cardenas confirmed Thursday the fatal shooting of six people, including two children, in western Mexico, but denied that they were from his family.

An official and news reports said earlier that six of the minister's relatives, including two girls aged seven and eight, were found executed in his home in Jalisco.

Cardenas confirmed the killings but said that the victims had been close friends living in a house he had sold to them.

"It was a close family that didn't deserve this end. I don't have a blood relationship with this family, but we have been close for years," Cardenas told journalists here.

The former governor of Jalisco state said that he had previously owned the building where the...