Congressman gunned down by assailants

? Gunmen on a motorcycle killed an opposition congressman as he stepped out of his party’s headquarters Thursday, several blocks from where the president was launching a plan to put 2,400 ex-soldiers on the streets to back up police.

President Oscar Berger lamented the death of Congressman Mario Pivaral, but said “we have to wait for the results of the investigation to find who is responsible.”

Pivaral was shot by two men riding by on a motorcycle just as he left party offices to answer a cell phone call, Police Commissioner Edgar Orellana quoted witnesses as saying. This was not a robbery, the commissioner said.

The killers had been lying in wait for him, fellow National Union Congressman Edgar Rodriguez told The Associated Press.

The party’s general secretary, Eduardo Meyer, suggested Pivaral’s killing was politically motivated.