Mexican police find blood matching missing former presidential candidate

Prosecutors have said that blood found in the car of a missing former presidential candidate matched his blood type as the apparent abduction gripped Mexico.

The family of Diego Fernandez de Cevallos offered to negotiate his release, three days after the prominent politician disappeared from a ranch in central Mexico.

Although authorities have not called the case a kidnapping, the 69-year-old's family called on his supposed abductors to the negotiating table in a message read out on various broadcast media.

Security forces meanwhile continued search efforts around his ranch in the central state of Queretaro.

The case has provoked fears that drug violence is reaching new political heights, shortly after the killing of a municipal candidate in a suspected drug gang-related attack in northern Mexico.

President Felipe Calderon has ordered a massive manhunt for his "personal friend" who ran for president in 1994 representing the ruling conservative National Action Party (PAN).

The missing politician's Hummer vehicle was found abandoned, along with some personal items and bloodstained scissors.

"The type of blood is A positive and that is also the blood type of Diego Fernandez de Cevallos, but we still can't say precisely today if it is his," Ricardo Najera, a spokesman for the federal prosecutor's office, told AFP on Monday.

There were no traces of gunshots at the site, Najera added.

Mexican media published various theories as to the fate of the politician and lawyer, including a possible abduction by drug gangs and a personal revenge attack.

"No line of investigation is being ruled out," an official from the prosecutor's office told AFP.