elgatoloco
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Registered: 11-19-2002
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Group calls for answers in Tijuana editor's slaying
November 11, 2004
A New York-based journalists group is pressing the Mexican Federal Attorney General's Office for action and answers in its investigation of the
shooting of a Tijuana editor.
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In a report released yesterday, the Committee to Protect Journalists said no arrests have been made in connection with the June 22 slaying of
Francisco Ort?z Franco, an editor with the Tijuana weekly Zeta.
Ort?z, shot in his car in front of his young son and daughter, "was likely killed in retaliation for his reporting," according to the lead federal
prosecutor in the case, the committee's report said. The prosecutor, Mart?n Levario Reyes, also "confirmed that gunmen for the Arellano Felix cartel
were the leading suspects."
Ort?z would have turned 49 this week.
Joel Simon, the committee's deputy director, and Carlos Lauria, the committee's Americas Program director, traveled to Tijuana in September to
interview journalists, law enforcement sources and others with knowledge of the case.
The committee periodically researches killings of journalists with the aim of focusing attention on the cases and prompting official action.
"This seemed like an opportunity where you had an investigation, you had at least some political will," Simon said in a telephone interview from his
New York office. "We're hoping that by looking at what's known, we can goad the authorities to pursue this more aggressively."
Ort?z, who held a law degree, seldom wrote about drug trafficking. But in the months before he was killed, he began to develop new sources, the report
said.
After writing a story about the Jan. 21, 2004, killing of Rogelio Delgado Neri, a former state prosecutor, Ort?z asked that the story run in Zeta
under the byline of Jes?s Blancornelas, the report said. Blancornelas is Zeta's editor in chief. He specializes in exposing the activities of drug
cartels. Since a 1997 attack by cartel members that left him seriously wounded and his bodyguard dead, Blancornelas has been under heavy guard.
The killing of Ort?z and others has had a dampening effect on Tijuana's press corps, the report said.
"The persistent violence against journalists, as well as the overwhelming impunity for those who commit such crimes, means that the drug traffickers
are free to intimidate the press ? and thus censor the news," the report said.
To view the full report on the Internet, go to www.cpj.org
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JESSE
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Registered: 11-5-2002
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The news in the street is that it was an unauthorized hit by Arellano Felix gunmen, apparently they killed the guy without asking for permission from
the bosses, and in the past month or so all 7 gunmen where taken out.
They now sleep with the fishes.
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