Contract killing: lawyer gunned down at church

Criminal lawyer César Augusto Fábrega Rodríguez, 51, was shot dead on Sunday afternoon when he was leaving the San Juan Episcopal Church in Santiago.

Deputy Police Commissioner Marcos Rodger said that everything indicates that it was a settling of scores or murder by contract. The police chief said that the lawyer had reported an attack by a criminal gang for which he had had some kind of function as a legal professional.

Fábrega seemed restless, and had gone out and returned to the church; several times. In the last outing he went to check his car and was intercepted by a man who got out of a Nissan Sentra B13 vehicle and fired four shots at point-blank range: one in the forehead and three in the chest.

The car used had been stolen on February 2 in Juan Díaz, in the district of Panama. The gunmen abandoned the vehicle on the Inter-American Highway, near a motel.

Fábrega,  who had been practicing as a lawyer since 1999, represented one of the defendants in the “Fortaleza” anti-drug operation , but the subject revoked his power last November.

 The police chief said that the lawyer had earlier reported an attack by a criminal gang for which he had had some kind of function as a legal professional.

Operation “Fortaleza” allowed the apprehension of 25 people, the seizure of 2 farms and 31 horses were located in one of them and  16 high-end four-wheel drive vehicles $275,000 were also seized.