Stephanie Jackter - 4-20-2003 at 10:38 PM
Reporter subpoenaed in Tijuana
He stays mum on source of internal police documents
By Anna Cearley
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
April 19, 2003
TIJUANA ? A Tijuana newspaper reporter has been subpoenaed after publishing a report based on internal police documents that detailed a corrupt law
enforcement ring's ties to drug traffickers.
The documents obtained by Frontera reporter Agust?n P?rez Aguilar shed light on last month's arrest of two federal agents and a municipal police
official. The three were eventually released due to lack of evidence.
P?rez said he was subpoenaed by an official in the Mexican Attorney General's Office in Tijuana after refusing to reveal who gave him the documents.
He said he will continue to refuse to name his source when he goes before a federal judge Monday, accompanied by a lawyer and a representative from
Baja California's Human Rights Office.
Mexican judges don't jail reporters for refusing to reveal their sources, said Ana Cecilia Ram?rez, an editor with Frontera. However, the action taken
against P?rez is viewed with concern by reporters and editors, who see it as an attempt to stop police officers from talking to the media.
"It could make them less likely to share information in the future," Ram?rez said.
This is only the second time in the past four years that the paper has received a subpoena from the Federal Attorney General's Office, Ram?rez said.
The first one arrived after the paper published an article about an investigation of the Arellano F?lix drug cartel.
A source with the Attorney General's Office in Tijuana said P?rez's subpoena had been obtained without the prior knowledge or authorization of the
office's top prosecutor.
The documents P?rez used were based on information from a person who claimed to have worked for a drug trafficking group that stole drugs from other
groups to sell.
The informant identified 20 people who he said were part of the group, including the three police officials who allegedly provided protection or
allowed the group to operate undisturbed.
P?rez said the newspaper didn't publish the information until the three officials were arrested along with a police informant. None was ever charged.
The city police official was reinstated in his job, and P?rez said the two federal agents were sent to Mexico City but remain on active duty.