Jorge Moncada Mino, journalist for the newspaper El Ciclón, was brutally attacked by two unidentified men who also threatened him to stop reporting on the leader of a dangerous local gang.
On 24 May 2013, Jorge Moncada Mino, journalist for the newspaper El Ciclón and presenter for Radio Kaliente, was brutally attacked by two unidentified men who, using a plumbing wrench and the butt of a gun, caused him several injuries to various parts of his body. The incident took place in the Lambayeque region of northern Peru.
Bloodied and in pain, Moncada was admitted to a local hospital where he was diagnosed with multiple traumas, nose fractures, an eye injury, scalp wounds and multiple bruises on the body. He underwent a CAT scan, abdominal ultrasound and other tests to rule out internal damage.
The journalist told IPYS that the attack occurred at 7 a.m. when he was buying bread in a shop near his home. An armed man got out of a parked car to insult him and warn him to stop his journalistic investigation of “Viejo Paco”, a pseudonym of Ángel León Arévalo, leader of the dangerous gang La Gran Familia. Viejo Paco is in prison for several months after a police operation that broke up the mafia that was protecting him.
Moncada said that his attacker hit him with the butt of the gun, knocking him to the ground. Subsequently, a second man kicked him and hit him on the head with a pipe wrench, while threatening to kill him if he continued reporting about the criminal.
The journalist believes Viejo Paco’s henchmen had been following him, a fact that he has reported to the National Criminalistics Division of the National Police (DIVINCRI), which took his statement in the hospital.
According to Moncada, the threats against him began when he started investigating the alleged land trafficking in the Community of Santo Domingo de Olmos, where he got sensitive information that he reported to Public Prosecutor Carmen Miranda. In fact, in November 2012 someone left a bullet and a threatening message near his home, which led him to request protection from the police and the local government, which he did not receive.
This time Moncada is requesting protection for himself and his family.
IPYS condemns the attack against Moncada by organized crime in Lambayeque, and demands that the authorities provide protection for his safety and step up the relevant investigations that will lead to the capture of the perpetrators.
