The mexican authorities ask for a sentence of 50 years in prison for Heriberto Peaks The Koala for the murder of journalist Javier Valdez, has informed this Thursday the Attorney General of the Republic (PGR, the equivalent of the national prosecuting authority). The Koala is accused of being one of the authors materials of the murder, which was perpetrated in may of last year in the State of Sinaloa, in the northwest of the country.
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The conviction that requires the PGR is the maximum penalty provided by the laws of Sinaloa for the crime of premeditated murder. The Koala was arrested last April in an operation in the border city of Tijuana, after which the authorities would follow in their steps during a year. Another of the three assumptions involved by the crime against Valdez has already been linked to a process, according to a release from the prosecutor’s office.
Valdez had been a correspondent of the newspaper La Jornada and founder of the weekly Ríodoce, where he established himself as one of the best chroniclers of the mexican narco-trafficking. The journalist was ambushed outside the offices of the weekly newspaper, and forced to kneel down by the gunmen before being riddled with 12 shots in Culiacán, the capital of Sinaloa. Valdez was 50 years old. His murder shocked Mexico, the most dangerous country in the world to exercise the journalistic work among States that are not in war, according to Reporters Without Borders.
The last few months of Valdez were marked by pressures, intrigues and threats of the drug trade. Two factions were disputing the leadership of the Sinaloa cartel, according to the former teammate of Valdez in Ríodoce. Few were The Chapitos, the sons of Joaquin Guzman, who is defended from the beginning of November before a New York court in İmajbet what is known as the trial of the century and could result in life imprisonment for the capo sinaloan. The others were The Dámasos, the people under the leadership of Damaso Lopez, The Bachelor, at that time presumed heir of El Chapo and arrested in Mexico City two weeks before the murder of Valdez. The Degree was extradited in July to the united States to testify against Guzman.
One of the last jobs of Valdez was an interview with The Bachelor and the sons of Chapo pressured the reporter not to publish, but he refused to yield, they said in their time from Ríodoce. That was in February of 2017. Three months later, she was murdered. “In Culiacán, is a danger to be alive, and to do journalism is to walk on an invisible line marked by the bad guys who are in the drug trade and in the Government (..) One should take care of everything and everyone,” said Valdez in a speech after receiving the International Award of Press Freedom in 2011.
so far this year, eight journalists have been killed in Mexico in possible relation with his journalistic work, details the organization Article 19. In 2017, the year of the murder of Valdez, reached a peak of 12 murders of communicators, the highest number since 2000. Article 19 denunciation also that 24 members of the press are missing since 2003.
The detention of the Koala had to wait a year and the process to bring it to trial, two. The indictment against one of the alleged murderers of Valdez, the first case becomes even more relevant in a country with a 99.2% of impunity in murders of journalists, according to that organization.
