The Mexican government announced on Wednesday the arrest of three suspects involved in the murder of journalist Lourdes Maldonado, whose death in Tijuana in January sparked a national mobilization against violence against the press.
"During the course of yesterday and this morning in Tijuana, Baja California,
three alleged perpetrators of the murder of journalist Lourdes Maldonado
that occurred last Sunday, January 23, were arrested," announced the Secretary of Security of Mexico, Rosa Icela Rodriguez.
Maldonado had publicly requested protection from the president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, in March 2019 due to a legal problem he had with Jaime Bonilla, former governor of Baja California of the ruling National Regeneration Movement (Morena).
"I also come here to ask for support, help and labor justice, because I even fear for my life, because it is a lawsuit that I have had with him for six years," he then told the president.
[Murdered a journalist who wrote about crime in Mexico, the most dangerous country in America for reporters]
The Undersecretary of Security, Ricardo Mejía, highlighted this Wednesday the arrest of the three suspects, whom he called
"alleged material co-authors"
, but did not give more details.
The authorities, with the support of the Baja California Prosecutor's Office, identified the alleged attackers thanks to neighborhood security cameras that captured the taxi in which they were traveling.
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"It has not yet been possible to determine the motive, but we are confident that from the interviews subject to judicial control and all subsequent steps it can be determined," Mejía said in the daily conference at the National Palace.
Maldonado was found dead on January 23 in a vehicle with gunshot wounds in front of her house, days after announcing that she had won a labor lawsuit and that the former governor's company did not want to pay her.
Bonilla denied being the intellectual author of the murder.
[The son of a journalist in Tijuana is murdered outside his house]
Maldonado was killed with a 45-caliber gunshot to the face, the undersecretary said at a press conference.
The journalist covered politics and corruption in Baja California.
In the last months of her life, she had a program called
Brebaje
on the station Sintoniza sin Fronteras.
For years she had a legal dispute for unjustified dismissal and payroll debts with the PSN television station, owned by Bonilla.
Mexico, considered the deadliest country for the press, is experiencing unprecedented violence at the beginning of 2022 due to the murder of at least four journalists, two of them in Tijuana, on the border with the United States.
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In recent days, Ernesto Islas Flores was also assassinated in Tijuana, who was editor of the Notiredes portal in that border city.
And this Sunday, Marco Ernesto Islas Flores, son of journalist Marco Antonio Islas Parra, was shot to death outside his house.
López Obrador promised to solve all crimes: “The difference now in relation to previous governments is that impunity is not allowed and that, if a crime is committed, those responsible are investigated and punished.
Zero impunity and zero corruption because we are not the same as those who have badly governed”.
With information from Efe and
Sin Embargo.