A full military funeral was held on Friday (28 March) in Buenos Aires for Colonel Martin Rico, political advisor to the Argentine Armed Forces Joint Chiefs of Staff, who was found dead on Thursday (27 March).

Colonel Rico's bullet-ridden body was found on the southern outskirts of Buenos Aires, and a Defence Ministry communique said he had been assassinated by extremist guerrillas.

A young metal worker also was found shot to death on Thursday in Villa Constitution, 190 miles (300 kilometres) north of Buenos Aires, and both police and the Defence Ministry blamed the same political assassins.

Police found the worker's body when they entered a major steelworks where he was employed in order to dislodge about 1,000 strikers.

The two latest deaths -- attributed to the outlawed Marxist People's Revolutionary (ERP) - brought to 109 the number of political murders in Argentina this year.