Nicaraguan Diplomat Found Dead In Bronx Before Annual UN General Assembly Meeting; Police Comm. Describes Stab Wounds As "Self-Inflicted"

A Nicaraguan diplomat stabs himself twelve times to death before the UN annual assembly meeting? Ahem. Sounds fishy.

From NY1

A Nicaraguan official was found dead Thursday morning inside his Bronx apartment.
Officials say Cesar Mercado, the current consul general of Nicaragua, was found inside an apartment at 2070 Grand Concourse in Tremont at about 10:15 a.m. His throat had been slashed.

Mercado's body was found by his driver, who was picking him up to take him to the United Nations General Assembly's annual meeting. The driver went up to the apartment, found the door was open and then found his employer's body.

From a later article we can also read how the police are investigating the twelve stab wounds as somehow self inflicted. Another theory of theirs is that they are the result of a domestic dispute. Obviously murder or assassination is not one of their favored lines of investigation.

Sources say investigators are looking into the possibility that the Nicaragua consul general consul died in the Bronx yesterday as the result of a violent domestic dispute.
At a news conference this afternoon, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said Cesar Mercado, 34, was stabbed 12 times in the abdomen and had a slashed throat.

"There was no indication of a struggle broken furniture, that sort of thing," said Kelly. "A lot of blood, two knives found in the bathroom sink. There are several prints that are being analyzed now, prints found in the blood, and the victim had no shoes but had socks on."

Kelly described some of the wounds as "hesitation wounds," that appear to have been self-inflicted.

"A hesitation wound is a wound that could potentially have been made by the individual himself,” said Kelly. “If, in fact, there is a wound from an assailant, it’s generally very direct and in one motion. These wounds were described to me as not being in one motion."

Mercado's body was discovered yesterday morning in a pool of blood inside his apartment on Grand Concourse in Tremont. He was found clutching human hair in both hands.

According to a Daily News article, Mercado spoke openly of his own death six months before to a friend.

"Beginning six months ago, he told me, 'Don't let them have a funeral for me here if I die. I want a closed casket, just send me to my mother,'" Amador said. He repeated the grim request two weeks ago, she said.

Mercado was apparently heading to the annual gathering of the General Assembly at UN Headquarters. A black SUV with a diplomatic plate reading "consul" parked outside the building had the day's General Assembly agenda on the front passenger seat.