elgatoloco - 8-28-2004 at 11:19 AM
Slain editor to receive posthumous honor
By Sandra Dibble
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
August 27, 2004
TIJUANA ? An editor for the newsweekly Zeta who was shot to death two months ago will be honored next month with the top award from the Inter American
Press Association.
The Grand Prize for Freedom of the Press will be given posthumously to Francisco Ortiz Franco. It is the highest annual recognition granted by the
IAPA, a Miami-based group made up of newspapers and news agencies from the Western Hemisphere.
"Though this award will never compensate the deplorable loss of the life of this courageous journalist, it will help draw international attention to
the investigation of this heinous crime," said the IAPA Awards Committee chairman, William E. Casey of Dow Jones, New York.
A lawyer and Zeta founder, Ortiz, 48, was shot to death by a masked gunman June 22 as he sat inside his car; his two children, in the back seat, were
not harmed.
No suspects have been arrested.
The IAPA prize "is a way of insisting that the investigation go as far as possible into who ordered his murder and who carried it out," said Zeta
co-editor Jesus Blancornelas, who survived an assassination attempt in 1997.
Blancornelas was the recipient of the same IAPA prize in 2000.
On behalf of the IAPA, Ort?z had been examining the state ofBaja California's investigation into the 1988 killing of another Zeta editor, H?ctor F?lix
Miranda.
Though two employees of Tijuana mayor-elect Jorge Hank Rhon were convicted of the killing, Zeta prints a full page each week asking Hank why they
carried out the crime. Hank has denied any involvement.
Earlier this month, the federal attorney general's officetook over the homicide investigation from the state; the transfer normally takes place when
an investigation points to organized crime.
At a news conference in Tijuana earlier this month, Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos, a top federal prosecutor, said the evidence suggests that Ort?z's
killing was linked to the Arellano Felix drug cartel.
Ort?z's wife, Gabriela, is expected to attend the IAPA awards ceremony on Oct. 22 in Antigua, Guatemala.