Lenin Carballido, 'Zombie' Mayor, Arrested In Oaxaca State, Mexico

On October 12, 2010, a judge in Mexico's Oaxaca state issued an order for the arrest of Lenin Carballido on the suspicion that he had been one of several men who gang-raped a woman in March 2004 in the city of Oaxaca, the capital of the state. Eight days later, an agent from the public records office notified the court that Carballido had died of a diabetic coma. In January of 2011, the charges against the "deceased" Carballido were dropped. Last Sunday, it was announced that Carballido had won mayoral elections in San Agustín Amatengo, a municipality of 1,400 residents in Oaxaca located about 50 miles south of the state capital -- a feat that has led many in the Spanish-language press to dub him the "zombie" mayor.

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According to New York's El Diario, Carballido appeared at meetings during his campaign and had his team put up banners with photos of himself around town with the phrase "Unidos por el desarrollo" ("United for development"). After the election results were announced and it came to light that the new mayor-elect was supposedly dead, the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD), one of three parties in the coalition which supported him, said it had been tricked. Mario Omar Reyes, the opposition PRI candidate in the municipality, asked for the authorities to investigate the matter.

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They did. Last week, the Oaxaca state prosecutors' office kicked off a search for the fraudulent mayor and called the falsification ofdocuments a "serious crime," adding that "the other big advantage we have is that mayors of municipalities are not protected by their office, for which proceedings can go on against this person."

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The prosecutors' office said the mayor-elect has been arrested on charges of using fake documents and making false statements, along with Abel de la Rosa Santos, a public records clerk who drew up the fake death certificate in league with Carballido. He was found on Tuesday night at the empty house of a family member on the outskirts of the city of Oaxaca, hiding in what authorities described as a heavily fortified room.

The office has also indicated that it would seek to reopen charges on Carballido for role in the alleged gang rape.