Bolivian deputy minister killed by miners

Bolivian miners kidnapped, tortured and beat to death a deputy minister who tried to negotiate with protesting workers on Thursday, in what the government condemned as a brutal murder.

"All signs indicate that our deputy minister, Rodolfo Illanes, has been cowardly and brutally murdered," Interior Minister Carlos Romero told a press conference.

Illanes, who has served as deputy interior minister since March, had gone to a highway blockade in the western highland town of Panduro in an attempt to mediate with miners after days of violent protests.

The workers were demanding more mining concessions with less stringent environmental rules.

"He was harassed, tortured... he was beaten to death according to the information we have," Defense Minister Reymi Ferreira said.

Illanes had earlier told local media by telephone that "I am in very good health... safeguarded by peers, so people do not hurt me."

But reports later came in that the 56-year-old former criminal lawyer was dead. "We saw the lifeless body of Deputy Minister Illanes," Moises Flores, director of a mining radio station, told a local radio outlet.

President Evo Morales was "deeply shaken" upon receiving the news, Ferreira said on private television station Red Uno, before breaking down in tears.

He said that authorities were attempting to recover the body, and in a separate statement reported that about 100 to 120 detentions had been made.

The ringleaders who killed Illanes had been identified, he said, adding that the act "cannot go unpunished, and must be taken to court."

Bolivia's attorney general announced that five prosecutors had been sent to Panduro.