The International Press Institute (IPI) today called for a full and independent investigation into the death of Mexican journalist Gregorio Jiménez de la Cruz, whose body was found Tuesday in an unmarked grave near Las Choapas, Veracruz state.
Jiménez, a crime reporter for the newspapers NotiSUR and Liberal del Sur, had been abducted by armed assailants on Feb. 5 after dropping his children off at school in Coatzacoalcos, some 75 km northwest of Las Choapas.
Authorities reportedly arrested five persons in connection with the crime, including Teresa de Jesús Hernández, a local bar owner. Veracruz state chief government spokeswoman Gina Domínguez said Hernández had “personal differences” with Jiménez and had contracted the leader of local criminal gang to kill him.
Jiménez’s family disputes this version. Carmen Hernández, Jiménez’s widow, told the newspaper Animal Políitco that Teresa de Jesús Hernández had threatened her husband with death after he reported on a killing that took place last October in the El Mamey bar, which Teresa de Jesús Hernández reportedly owns.
“IPI offers its sincerest condolences to the family of Gregorio Jiménez da la Cruz, and we urge the Mexican government to assume immediate jurisdiction in this case and carry out a comprehensive and impartial investigation,” IPI Press Freedom Manager Barbara Trionfi said.
She added: “We urge Veracruz state officials to refrain from pre-empting the findings of a full investigation. Every relevant line of investigation must be considered here, including the possibility that Jiménez was killed in retaliation for his work as a journalist.”
Trionfi indicated that IPI would remain sceptical of any conclusions reached by Veracruz authorities until the latter fully acknowledged the journalist-safety crisis taking place in the state and took concrete steps to combat it.
According to IPI’s Death Watch, Jiménez is the 12th journalist killed in Veracruz since 2006. However, in a February 2013 meeting with IPI Mexico City, Domínguez and other state officials insisted that press freedom was “100% guaranteed” in Veracruz and that there had been no journalists killed, explaining the apparent discrepancy through insinuations about the private lives of the murdered reporters.
In August 2013, the Veracruz Supreme Court overturned the conviction of an illiterate drifter whom Veracruz prosecutors said had murdered Regina Martínez Pérez, a correspondent for Proceso magazine, in a “crime of passion.” The court ruled that the suspect’s “confession” – the only solid piece of evidence against him – had been extracted under torture and was therefore invalid. (See IPI’s interview with Proceso journalist Jorge Carrasco on the magazine’s quest for justice in the Martínez case.)
IPI today called on Mexico’s Office of the Special Prosecutor for Crimes against Freedom of Expression (FEADLE) to assume jurisdiction over the Jiménez case.
“We expect FEADLE to now do what it was created to do: investigate crimes against the media in cases where state and local officials have proven unable or unwilling,” Trionfi stated.
During IPI’s Mission to Mexico in February 2013, both Laura Borbolla, FEADLE’s top prosecutor, and the administration of President Enrique Peña Nieto insisted that the federal government took the threat to journalist safety seriously.
One year later, Trionfi said that swift justice for the killers of Gregorio Jiménez de la Cruz would go a long way towards assuaging IPI’s “persistent doubts” over Mexico’s commitment to press freedom.
—
For more information, contact Scott Griffen at +43 1 512 90 11 or +44 746 263 9609.
