Journalist Moisés Sánchez Cerezo was found dead weeks after being kidnapped in Veracruz state. A former police officer claims the local mayor is behind Sánchez's death.
Mexican journalist Moisés Sánchez Cerezo was kidnapped by armed men from his home in Medellín de Bravo in Veracruz state, on 2 January 2015. According to a report from the International Press Institute (IPI), Sánchez was reportedly threatened just days before his disappearance and had received threats from the Medellin de Bravo mayor, Omar Cruz, over the previous year.
On 24 January his body was found, beheaded, on the outskirts of Medellín de Bravo. Criticism of the investigation reflects the widespread corruption and general distrust of authorities in Mexico, a country ranked 7th in the world for impunity in the Committee to Protect Journalists’ latest impunity index. Sánchez’s son, Jorge, refused to believe that it was his father’s body that was found and asked for DNA tests to be done. On 27 January, the state attorney general’s office said DNA results showed the victim was Sánchez. Jorge told the Committee to Protect Journalists that he would wait for the federal attorney general’s DNA results, saying, “We don’t trust the local authorities here.”
The body was found after former police officer Clemente Noé Rodríguez Martínez, arrested in connection with Sánchez’s disappearance, confessed to playing a part in the journalist’s murder. Rodríguez Martínez, who also works as a driver for Mayor Cruz, said that the mayor had ordered the murder. As an elected official, Cruz cannot be prosecuted, according to a measure called a fuero that has its roots in the constitution and is meant to prevent politically motivated judicial harassment of elected politicians. Veracruz state prosecutor Luis Angel Bravo said he would ask the state legislature to strip the mayor of his immunity.
Over the last week, numerous IFEX members have reacted to the news.