October 14, 2008	Tuesday	Shawwal 14, 1429

PUEBLA (Mexico): Thirty four Central American immigrants have escaped from a house in Mexico where local police had been colluding with people traffickers to keep them prisoner, an official said Monday.

Thirty four undocumented immigrants from Honduras and El Salvador escaped from the house on Sunday, local home affairs official Mario Montero told journalists.

“It seems that local police were in collusion with the traffickers,” Montero said. Ten officers had been involved in the scandal in which the immigrants were blackmailed and abused, he said without giving further details.

Local residents burned several police vehicles and threw stones at the town hall in the town of Lara Grajales in the central Mexican state of Puebla Monday to protest the police collusion.

“They kidnapped me, they asked for $3,000 to take me to the (US) border,” said Honduran immigrant Ale Gomez.—AFP