Ecuador opposition legislator, two others shot dead

CNN February 17, 1999 Ecuador opposition legislator, two others shot dead

                  QUITO, Ecuador (Reuters) -- Gunmen shot dead a leftist Ecuadorian
                  legislator, his nephew and a bodyguard Wednesday moments after they
                  walked out of Congress.

                  Congressman Jaime Hurtado, a member of the opposition Popular Democratic
                  Movement (MPD), and his two companions were gunned down just 100 yards
                  from Congress in the center of Ecuador's Andean capital, Quito.

                  Interior Minister Vladimiro Alvarez condemned the attack and angrily rejected
                  an accusation by an MPD official that the government of President Jamil
                  Mahuad was behind the killing of Hurtado, who was a staunch opponent.

                  "We aren't going to respond to that type of accusation made under the
                  influence of emotion. This isn't a case which just affects Jaime's fellow party
                  members, it affects the whole country," Alvarez told reporters.

                  MPD member Luis Villacis said earlier: "This government isn't just starving us
                  to death, it's murdering our leaders." The three gunmen ran off and escaped in
                  the crowd, police said. Hurtado, 52, and his nephew lived long enough to be
                  taken to a hospital before dying of their wounds.

Hurtado had close links to the unions involved in strikes and other protest
against the austere economic policies of President Jamil Mahuad.

                  Quito is suffering an increase in violent crime. More than 60 percent of the
                  Andean nation's 12 million inhabitants live below the poverty line, according to
                  official data.