Missing Mexican Journalist Found Dead, Mayor Accused of Orchestrating His Death
January 26, 2015 10:47 am 0 comments
Missing Mexican Journalist Found Dead, Mayor Accused of Orchestrating His Death
Veracruz State Prosecutor Luís Angel Bravo
The body of Veracruz journalist José Moisés Sánchez Cerezo, missing since Jan. 2, has been found on the outskirts of Medellín de Bravo, Mexico, state prosecutor Luís Angel Bravo announced on Sunday. A former police officer confessed to participating in the murder, according to Bravo, at the behest of Medellín de Bravo Mayor Omar Cruz Reyes.
Former police officer Clemente Noé Rodríguez Martínez confessed that he and five accomplices killed Sánchez Cerezo. The men allegedly beheaded the journalist and disposed of his body in a ravine. Rodríguez Martínez said that he acted under orders of the local police force’s deputy director, Martín López Meneses, who in turn was reportedly told to carry out the attack by Mayor Cruz Reyes. Aside from acting as deputy director for the police force, López Meneses also reportedly worked as the mayor’s chauffeur and bodyguard.
Sánchez Cerezo owned and edited a weekly community newspaper called La Unión. He was a vocal critic of Cruz Reyes, and posted several condemnations of the mayor on his Facebook page in the days prior to his disappearance.
On Jan. 2, a group of armed men charged Sánchez Cerezo’s home and removed the journalist by force as his son looked on. The men confiscated a cell phone, a camera and a computer.
According to anonymous information provided to journalist-rights group ARTICLE 19, Sánchez Cerezo was reportedly threatened by the mayor multiple times in 2014. In the days leading up to his disappearance, Sánchez Cerezo said he was told by a trusted source that the mayor “intended to silence him by teaching him a lesson.”
Mayor Cruz Reyes previously denied involvement in Sánchez Cerezo’s disappearance, stating that the two had maintained cordial relations in the past.
“There has never been a problem,” Cruz Reyes previously wrote in a statement. “I do not know why the family says that I am the mastermind. I’ve always had a cordial relationship with him.”
Veracruz is among the deadliest states in Mexico for journalists, 11 having been murdered since December 2010.
http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/content/missing-mexican-journalist-found-dead-mayor-accused-orchestrating-his-death
