Kidnapping by cops caught on video

MEXICO CITY: There it was on video: five armed policemen barge into a hotel in Mexico before dawn and march out with three handcuffed men.

But police weren’t making an arrest. Prosecutors say they were apparently taking orders from criminals. Just hours after the three were seized, they were found beaten to death.

Mexicans have become inured to lurid tales of police collaboration with narcotics gangs during five-and-a-half years of a drug war that has cost more than 47 500 lives.

Although the murders occurred in January, the officers were not detained until June 6.

Police are investigating whether the gunmen in the tape belong to the New Generation cartel based in Jalisco state.

The arrests come less than three weeks before national elections in which security and corruption are major issues.

Police corruption is rampant in local governments across political parties. Thousands of Mexico’s 460 000 officers, including entire forces at times, have been fired, detained or placed under investigation for allegedly aiding drug gangs.

President Felipe Calderon’s plan to vet them has moved slowly, with only 8 percent passing background checks as of the end of 2011. – Sapa-AP CAIRO: Egypt’s supreme court ruled yesterday to dissolve the Islamist-led parliament, plunging a troubled transition to democracy into turmoil just two days before elections.

Islamists who gained most from Hosni Mubarak’s overthrow decried what they called a “coup” by an army-led establishment still full of Mubarakera officials. They said the street movement that spurred last year’s uprising would not let it pass.

The parliamentary vote earlier this year had swept long repressed Islamists into a commanding position in the legislature, a feat the Muslim Brotherhood had aimed to repeat with their candidate in tomorrow’s and Sunday’s presidential vote.

In a further setback for the Islamists, the Supreme Constitutional Court ruled that Mubarak’s last prime minister, Ahmed Shafik, could stay in the presidential race against the Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsy.

Morsy pledged to press forward with his presidential bid regardless and warned against foul play

Shafik who was appointed premier in the last days of Mubarak’s rule, hailed the rulings as “historic”. – Reuters