MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Paraguayan mayor in critical condition after taking 7 shots

Governor Acevedo cannot trust the National Police

The 53-year-old mayor of the Paraguayan town of Pedro Juan Caballero was in critical condition early Wednesday following his assassination attempt Tuesday afternoon.

Mayor José Carlos Acevedo was taken to the local Viva Vida Hospital where he was treated for his multiple bullet wounds, many of them in his neck, it was reported.

Amambay Police Commissioner Éver Caballero said Acevedo had been appointed a team of bodyguards, but Councilman César Lesme said he was not properly guarded when he left the meeting after which he was shot.

The liberal Acevedo is running for his fourth term as mayor of the capital of Amambay. He is the brother of late Congressman Robert Acevedo, and of the current Governor, Ronald Acevedo.

According to the latest medical report, José Carlos Acevedo was in a delicate condition after three hours of surgery. He was shot seven times, four of them in the neck, plus two in the right arm and one in the left arm. A part of his lung was also affected. He has already been resuscitated once, doctors said. “He is still delicate. Now we are going to see the evolution and the consequences, one of them is the cardiac arrest,” the treating physician David Peña told reporters.

Acevedo was attacked Tuesday afternoon in front of PJC's Courthouse. According to video images of the attack, there were three shooters, while a fourth member of the group was driving the getaway car, which was reportedly found hours later after being incinerated on a local road.

“The government never provided security to any citizen,” Governor Ronald Acevedo said regarding the attack on his brother. “We can only pray at this moment, pray for the life of my brother, nobody called me and they are not going to call me when my daughter died, when they killed my daughter nobody from the Government called me. I don't know what the police are there for,” he added. What can you expect from this government?“ he went on as he admitted he could not trust the National Police.

”This government is not going to do anything, nor the police; what is their presence for? So when they killed my daughter they did nothing, now what are they going to do, stop fucking around. We need blood of any kind and a lot of prayers,” he said.