Nicaraguan diplomat found dead as UN meets

Police have no clues as to the motive, or any suspect, for the murder of a Nicaraguan consular official discovered in the Bronx with his throat cut yesterday as the UN met in New York. Even suicide has not been ruled out, despite the discovery of two kitchen knives and reports from neighbours of a loud disturbance.

Cesar Mercado was found dead by a driver who had been sent to take him to the United Nations' New York City headquarters for the General Assembly from his apartment near East 180th Street.

Edgar Hernandez told police he at first waited for Mercado to come downstairs. When there was no sign of the diplomat, Hernandez climbed up to his sixth-floor apartment.

Finding the door closed but unlocked, he made his way inside.
Mercado's body was lying fully clothed and covered in blood just inside the doorway.

As well as the cut to his throat, Mercado had suffered stab wounds to his abdomen. Police found a 12-inch steak knife and another, smaller blade beside the diplomat's bloodied sink.

Furniture had been overturned, confirming a near neighbour's account of hearing "somebody banging on the wall" at about 3am. But there was no sign of forced entry, suggesting Mercado could have known his assailant.

Bizarrely, a good friend of Mercado's – she considered himself his "New York mother" – told the NY Daily News he had recently told her twice how he would like his funeral to be arranged.

"He told me, 'Don't let them have a funeral for me here if I die... Just send me to my mother,'" said Amparo Amador.

While Mercado is said to have lived quietly, his home country is no stranger to violence. Just three days ago, the US announced it was adding Nicaragua to its 'Majors List' of countries identified as drug-trafficking hubs, saying drug-related violence had skyrocketed throughout Central America.

The news prompted Nicaragua's president, Daniel Ortega, to ask the US for more resources with which to fight drugs gangs. Yesterday, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos said in New York that cartels are "trying to take over countries in Central America".

But the police have not discounted a more domestic motive for the
attack: they are investigating the possibility that Mercado's death was the result of a tryst gone wrong. ·