Mexico: 15 years in prison for an accomplice in the assassination of Javier Valdez

Demonstrators pose in front of a portrait of the murdered AFP journalist Javier Valdez, May 20, 2017 in Monterrey, in northern Mexico. REUTERS / Daniel Becerril

Text by: RFI Follow

14 years and eight months in prison: the federal justice rendered its decision this Thursday February 27, three years after the assassination of this collaborator of the AFP, specialized on the drug trade. His death had sparked international outrage. An unprecedented conviction in Mexico.

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It is the first time that the prosecution specializing in crimes against freedom of expression has pronounced such a sentence. And it was not the sponsor of the assassination, but an accomplice who was imprisoned. Heriberto Picos Barraza, nicknamed " the Koala ", had served as a driver for the two men who, on May 15, 2017, murdered Javier Valdez in broad daylight, on a street in Culiacan, in the west of Mexico.

The 50-year-old journalist, father, had just left his office for the review Riodoce, which he had founded in 2003. He collapsed, his body riddled with bullets . Javier Valdez informed his readers about trafficking and corruption. He was a valuable source of information in a country plagued by self-censorship, where 10 journalists were murdered in 2019 .

One of the two shooters tried in March

The case is not over. One of the two shooters was arrested. He refused to plead guilty in exchange for a 20-year prison sentence. He will be tried in March as the main perpetrator of the assassination.

The noose tightens on those responsible for the murder of Javier Valdez. According to the prosecution, the assassination was ordered by the son of a drug trafficker, Damaso Lopez Serrano, furious at having been criticized in an article by Riodoce.

► Read also: Violence against journalists in Mexico: the Mago Torres investigation

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  • Mexico
  • Freedom of press

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