Progress in probe into one journalist’s murder but incredible delays in another

Reporters Without Borders takes note of the recent progress in the investigation into newspaper reporter Eliseo Barrón Hernández’s murder on 25 May in the north-central state of Durango. Five presumed members of Zetas, a paramilitary group involved in extortion and drug-trafficking, who were arrested on 6 June, have confessed to killing him with the aim of pressuring the local press to censor itself. Barrón was a crime reporter for the Milenio Torreón daily, The five detainees are José Pedro Jauregui Jiménez, Raúl Francisco Rodríguez Valderrama, Víctor Alfredo López Ramírez, Oscar Cárdenas Castillo and Israel Sánchez Jaimes. Sánchez has allegedly confessed to firing the shot that killed Barrón on the orders of Zetas chief Lucio “Lucifer” Fernández, who was reportedly angered by the media’s coverage of his activities. “The confessions tend to confirm that Barrón was murdered because of his work as a reporter or, worse still, was sacrificed in order to terrorise his fellow journalists,” Reporters Without Borders said. “It is important that the federal-level investigation should continue and should try to shed light on the accomplices that the killers may have had, especially as Barrón had been covering police corruption.” Reporters Without Borders added: “Barrón’s death brings the number of journalists murdered in Mexico since 2000 to 49. Almost all of these murders are still unpunished although the identity of the masterminds is known in some cases. The press freedom organisation, which is sending a delegation to Mexico next month, urges the federal attorney general’s office to explain the delay in the investigation into the fatal shooting of El Diario reporter Armando Rodríguez Carreón on 13 November in the northern city of Ciudad Juárez. According to El Diario, the Chihuahua state attorney general’s office has sent the findings of its investigation to the federal attorney general’s office, so that the alleged mastermind and his accomplices can be arrested. “It is incomprehensible that the federal attorney general’s office has failed to act on the instructions of the federal interior ministry since receiving the case file back from the ministry.” Reporters Without Borders notes that on 11 June the national defence ministry ordered appropriate and necessary disciplinary measures for the soldiers who assaulted several reporters, including an El Diario photographer, after a road accident on 4 June in Ciudad Juárez. Finally, Reporters Without Borders is worried about Lydia Cacho, the author of a book about a paedophile network involving Mexican politicians, who has just received more death threats by email and who told the press freedom organisation that she is no longer receiving any protection.