Politician arrested after murder of Mexican journalist
December 18, 2020
A local politician from Mexico's northern state of Chihuahua has been arrested for his suspected involvement in the murder of Miroslava Breach, a Mexican journalist killed nearly four years ago.
He has been accused of passing on information about the journalist to those who murdered her. According to authorities, the politician was the mayor of Chinipas in Chihuahua at the time. He belonged to the conservative National Action Party (PAN).
On March 23, 2017, Breach was in her car outside her home in the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua, when she was shot eight times.
A correspondent for the national newspaper La Jornada and the regional news website Norte de Ciudad Juárez, Breach covered the intersection of corruption and crime. A year before she was killed, she had reported on alleged links between politicians and the organized crime syndicate known as La Línea.
Authorities had previously sentenced a suspected leader of the Los Salazar drug cartel to 50 years in prison in relation to Breach’s murder.
Mexico is one of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists. This has been the most violent year for journalists in Mexico for at least 10 years, with 19 murdered just this year, Alejandro Encinas, deputy interior minister for human rights.
see/sms (AFP, dpa)