Former world champion killed

Boxing

Elvis Alvarez, a 30-year-old former world flyweight champion, on Sunday became the second professional sportsman to be shot dead in the Colombian city of Medellin in the past week.

A man shot Alvarez 12 times as the boxer watched a religious procession on a street in a residential neighbourhood of the industrial city, where the Colombian footballer Andres Escobar was shot dead last year.

Police suspect the shooting was to avenge a failed attempt by a street gang to steal Alvarez's motorcycle in March last year. Alvarez managed to prevent the gang from taking his bike, beating one of its members.

On Monday last week, gunmen killed 20-year-old Arley Antonio Rodriguez of the city's Deportivo Independiente football team.