Former Editor of El Diario Slain in N.Y. : Crime: The newsman battled drug traffickers in his Spanish-language newspaper and wrote a book about the Colombia narcotics trade.

The former editor-in-chief of New York City’s largest Spanish-language daily newspaper, who resigned to run a magazine that often crusaded against drug dealers, was assassinated Wednesday night in a Queens restaurant.

Police said two men approached Manuel de Dios Unanue, 48, and one opened fire. De Dios was struck in the head by two bullets and died at the restaurant, Menson Asturias.

Detectives said they lacked good descriptions of the killers but were investigating the possibility, de Dios, a prominent and outspoken Spanish-language journalist, may have been slain by drug dealers in revenge for his strong anti-drug editorials.

As part of his investigations of the Medellin cartel, de Dios had visited Colombia, where killings of crusading anti-drug journalists are not uncommon. He wrote a book, titled “The Secret of the Medellin Cartel,” which detailed the operations of the Colombian drug lords in 1987.

Police said de Dios was slain as he sat at the bar of the restaurant. Detectives said one of the killers entered the restaurant before the shooting, stared at him and left. He returned moments later wearing a hood over his head, with another man, and opened fire, striking de Dios twice.

De Dios, who is survived by his wife and two-year-old daughter, resigned as editor-in-chief of El Diario-La Prensa, the city’s biggest Spanish language daily in 1989. For a time he served as a radio talk show host on a New York Spanish-language radio station while publishing the magazine Cambio XXI, which crusaded against drug dealers.

He joined El Diario as an investigative reporter in the 1970s, where he often fought against the drug cartels and their money launderers. De Dios became editor of the paper in 1984.

“I am sure he made many enemies,” said Fernando Moreno, El Diario’s editor-in-chief. “He chose always the toughest stories.

“He should be remembered as a very tough journalist,” Moreno continued. “He was very very aggressive. He was involved in many investigations. He did many exposes of people who were washing money and trafficking.

“There were many threats against him over the years,” Moreno added.

De Dios was born in Camaguy, Cuba, and lived in Spain before entering the United States. He studied criminology before becoming an investigative reporter.

In an interview with New York Newsday, de Dios said he first dedicated himself to investigative stories, mostly against terrorism, concentrating on the FALN, which demanded Puerto Rican independence, and Omega 7, a right wing anti-Castro group.

He said that one group actually planted a bomb at the newspaper’s offices. It exploded and destroyed the lobby.

“I am lucky to be alive,” de Dios told Newsday. “That is when my name started being recognized.”

De Dios said that writing was something he always wanted to do.

“When I was a child in Battista’s Cuba, I got together with some friends and put out a newspaper that we made by typing out sheets of paper and making carbon copies,” De Dios said. “We did that until Castro took over. When I lived in Spain under Franco, I was also a writer. No one will ever be able to tell me that I can’t write.”