Kidnapped Spanish Tourist Found Blindfolded/Bound

[Willowdared]

This is why I don't go to TJ anymore. We used to go to Newport (Puerto Nuevo) for lobster all the time.

Kidnapped Spanish tourist found blindfolded, wandering beside Tijuana road

By Sandra Dibble
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
2:26 p.m. October 16, 2007
TIJUANA – A 67-year-old Spanish tourist abducted Saturday in Rosarito Beach was found blindfolded and with his hands tied early Tuesday as he walked by the side of a busy road, police said.

Jose Mara Sanchez Oses initially tried to flee when Tijuana patrol officers approached him, but cooperated when he could see they were uniformed police, said Arturo Zazueta Lara, a police chief in the southern district of San Antonio de los Buenos.

The victim had been beaten, and “was quite upset and frightened,” Zazueta said. Sanchez made no statement, but his face showed cuts and bruisesTuesday morning as he stepped from municipal police headquarters into an a Red Cross ambulance.

Sanchez had been released by his captors about 10 minutes before he was found, Zazueta said. It was unclear whether any ransom had been paid. The victim rebuffed attempts by state investigators to question him, Zazueta said: “He said he did not want to make any statements to police in civilian dress.”

Sanchez, a resident of Pamplona, Spain, is one of two men abducted at gunpoint about 3 p.m. Saturday in Puerto Nuevo, an area south of downtown Rosarito known for its restaurants that specialize in lobster dishes.

There was no information about the other victim, identified by Spanish officials as a Mexican-American man.

According to a spokeswoman at the Spanish Embassy in Mexico City, Sanchez and his wife had come to visit his son, a Spanish citizen who lives in San Diego but works in Tijuana. The older couple, together with their son, daughter-in-law and grandchild, were having lunch with members of a Mexican-American family, the spokeswoman said. She said armed assailants broke into the restaurant as they were having lunch.

Sanchez's wife, son and daughter-in-law, a U.S. citizen, suffered injuries, according to the Spanish Embassy. The U.S. Consulate in Tijuana confirmed that three people, including a U.S. citizen, and two Spanish citizens, were taken across the border for medical treatment. They were accompanied by a child who was not injured.

[armsmaster270]

I don't even trust the cops down there