Prominent Mexican vigilante leader slain in violent attack

FILE PHOTO: Vigilante leader Hipolito Mora (wearing hat, C) and other vigilantes walk with their family and friends to voluntarily cooperate in a shootout investigation in La Ruana, Michoacan December 27, 2014. REUTERS/Alan Ortega/File Photo

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - The prominent leader of a vigilante group in the western Mexican state of Michoacan was slain on Thursday, the local government said, in a brutal attack that left his body so badly burned that it was almost unrecognizable.

The state attorney general's office said at around midday it received word of an attack on Hipolito Mora in the town of Felipe Carrillo Puerto in western Michoacan. Mora founded a so-called self-defense group that rose to prominence a decade ago with a declared aim of protecting the area from a predatory drug gang in the violent state.