New twist at the trial of Mexican drug trafficker Joaquin Guzman aka El Chapo in New York. According to a former collaborator of the drug baron, El Chapo's sons murdered Mexican journalist Javier Valdez, a drug affairs specialist, in May 2017 in Mexico.
"He disobeyed the threatening orders of the sons". Javier Valdez, who was a freelancer for AFP, "disobeyed the threatening orders of the sons" of El Chapo and "that's why they killed him", said at the bar Damaso Lopez Nunez, former Deputy Warden then passed to El Chapo and nicknamed "El Licenciado" or "Lic" (the graduate). The journalist, then 50 years old, disobeyed by publishing precisely an interview with "Lic" in his weekly Riodoce, said the latter.
"He followed his ethic". The witness, who had already recounted how he had joined El Chapo on Tuesday, told the jury on Wednesday the genesis of the interview: he wanted to come back to "completely false" information published by another Mexican journalist, who mentioned it as one of those responsible for an operation against the sons of El Chapo, he had decided to grant a telephone interview to Javier Valdez. The latter then investigated the war of succession within the cartel of Sinaloa, after the arrest of El Chapo in January 2016. The sons of El Chapo, Ivan Archivaldo and Alfredo Guzman, heard about the interview, and " obliged Valdez not to publish it ". "But he followed his ethic and published it anyway," added the witness.
An unflattering portrait of the sons of El Chapo. The interview painted an unflattering portrait of El Chapo's sons. It had been badly received by them as well as by the supporters of "Lic", according to Ismael Bojorquez, co-founder of Riodoce with Valdez. Damaso Lopez, arrested on May 2, 2017 by the Mexican authorities, shortly before Valdez's death on May 15, denied during the cross-examination of the defense that he ordered the murder of Valdez, after the publication of a very critical article on his son, nicknamed "Mini Lic". According to defense lawyer Eduardo Balarezo, the article featured "Mini Lic" as "a bogus, pathetic narcotics trafficker".
"Lic" hopes to reduce his sentence. "My son and I are innocent of this murder," said Lic, 52, who has been sentenced to life in the United States but still hopes to reduce his sentence by testifying for the prosecution. The former prison boss also thought it possible that El Chapo himself did not know what his sons were doing. "The truth is that maybe he did not know it, but now he knows it," added "Lic" at the helm, a few meters from the El Cono bench. The "Licenciado" reported that his own son surrendered to US authorities in July 2017 at the border because El Chapo's sons wanted him killed.
One of the most dangerous countries for journalists. The assassination of Javier Valdez shocked Mexico, one of the most dangerous countries for journalists with more than 100 of them murdered since the year 2000, crimes that went unpunished for the most part. Valdez, with his diary Riodoce, was one of the few to denounce the actions of organized crime, especially in the region of Sinaloa, in northwestern Mexico, where El Chapo comes from.
Javier Valdez's widow, journalist Griselda Triana, reacted by saying that the new Mexican justice minister should "deepen her investigations" on the case and verify the statements of "Lic", so far considered as one of the sponsors of the murder. El Chapo, 61, risks life imprisonment for co-leading the Sinaloa cartel, responsible in US law for exporting 155 tons of cocaine to the United States between 1989 and 2014. His trial opened on November 5 in New York and should end in February.