Paraguayan lawmaker killed in shootout with drug agents: police

Asuncion: A lawmaker in Paraguay's ruling party was killed at his home Monday in a shootout with drug enforcement agents, police said.

Officers came under fire at Eulalio Gomes's home in the country's northeast and shot back, "mortally wounding the parliamentarian," according to police chief Carlos Benitez.

Gomes, 67, was a member of the conservative Colorado party.

The operation, police said, had targeted his son Alexandre under a warrant for the arrest of "persons suspected of being part of a scheme of money laundering from drug trafficking and criminal association."

The younger Gomes later turned himself in.

"The links between drug trafficking and politics are becoming increasingly worrying," Paraguayan criminologist Juan Martens told AFP.

"There is information about... mayors, councilors of cities... and political leaders who are under suspicion," he said.