Thread: Mexico catches suspect in death of US journalist

Mexico catches suspect in death of US journalist

By Mark Stevenson / Associated PressAssociated Press
Posted: 05/23/2012 12:43:44 PM MDT

MEXICO CITY (AP) - Prosecutors in southern Mexico say they have captured a man suspected in the killing of a U.S. journalist during protests against the Oaxaca state government in 2006.

A spokesman for the Oaxaca state prosecutors office says suspect Lenin Osorio was captured early Wednesday.

The spokesman says he is not authorized to be quoted by name, and that he does not know which side of the conflict the suspect was on.

Bradley Will was shot as he videotaped a clash between protesters and government supporters.

The New York man was covering the conflict for Indymedia.org. He sympathized with the protesters, one of whom was arrested in 2008 for the killing but was later released.

The protests started as a teachers' strike and paralyzed Oaxaca's capital for months until federal police intervened.

Mexico catches suspect in death of US journalist - El Paso Times

I am a little skeptical about the latest suspect charged with Bradley Will's murder, especially the timing considering the political climate of Mexico now and the potential Presidential election outcome. I will be interested so learn of Brad Will's family's reaction.

There is a lot of Merida Initiative money tied to this investigation.

I read this fascinating account of the murder of Bradley Will about a week ago. The piece is a long read and worth the time. I have included some excerpts.

The complete article and companion articles are at the link.

The Rule of Impunity: Mexican Government Ignores Overwhelming Evidence, Charges Oaxacan Activists with Brad Will's Murder
By
John Gibler
October 20, 2008
Issue #
127


PHOTO: IN BROAD DAYLIGHT: Moments before Brad Will was shot and killed October 27, 2006 in Santa Lucia del Camino, Oaxaca, Mexico, several local officials were filmed and photographed firing in the direction of Brad and anti-government protesters. (From left to right) Juan Carlos Soriano Velasco, a municipal police officer, town official Orlando Manuel Aguilar Coello and Abel Santiago Zarate, a member of the state government. Aguilar Coello and Zarate were both briefly detained after Brad's death but were soon released when Oaxacan authorities mistakenly asserted that the two bullets that killed Brad did not come from a .38 revolver like the ones that both men were using that day.

On October 27, 2006, Brad Will stood on Juarez Avenue in the municipality of Santa Lucia del Camino, Oaxaca, Mexico. He was filming a violent clash between armed, civilian-clad municipal police and officials and members of the Oaxaca Peoples’ Popular Assembly, or APPO.

Brad, a longtime New York City activist and independent journalist, traveled to Oaxaca in early October 2006 to report on the protest movement led by the state teachers union that sought to oust governor Ulises Ruiz of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which had ruled Oaxaca with an iron fist for almost 80 years.

Brad stood amid the APPO protesters and other journalists, filming down the length of Juarez Avenue where armed officials were firing at the protesters. Brad was shot and fell to the ground, his camera still running, having recorded the sound of the shot that hit him. Brad was shot from straight on, just below the chest, and yet his killer does not appear in the camera frame at the moment of the gunshot. Brad died on the way to the hospital. He had been shot twice.

Two years later, on October 16, 2008, the Mexican federal government arrested two members of the APPO, charging Juan Manuel Martinez as the gunman and Octavio Perez with helping to cover up Brad’s murder (Perez was later released on bail). Federal police were still looking for other suspected accomplices, all members of the APPO who had tried to carry Brad to safety and save his life.

The arrests came after a series of human rights reports criticized the government’s investigation for failing to follow leads pointing to local officials who were widely photographed by the press shooting at APPO protesters on October 27, 2006.

“It is such a coverup,” said Kathy Will, Brad’s mother, in a telephone interview on learning of the arrests. “It is an insult to us and to all of the groups that have tried to help with a meaningful investigation.”

LONG-RANGE SHOT

Whether Brad Will was shot at close or long range lies at the heart of the controversy over the government’s investigation and the recent arrests. Local police in civilian clothing and municipal officials in Santa Lucia del Camino were filmed and photographed firing on the APPO protesters among whom Brad Will was standing when he was shot. The federal government however, has not investigated the involvement of the local officials.

More than a dozen protesters and press photographers surrounded Brad when he was shot. All those interviewed said that the bullets came from down the street. Moments before Brad was killed, the Milenio newspaper photographer Oswaldo Ramirez was shot in the leg. The Mexican Office of the Federal Attorney General, or PGR, however, has neither interviewed Mr. Ramirez nor investigated the shooting.

“All the shots were coming from down the street, where the paramilitaries had gathered,” said Mexican journalist Diego Osorno, who covered the battle for Milenio that day and later wrote about it in his book Oaxaca Under Siege.

“As journalists, we were all focusing on the paramilitaries as the source of the gunfire,” he said.


PHOTO: SHOOT TO KILL: Pedro Carmona, a town official in Santa Lucia del Camino, opens fire on protesters shortly before Brad Will was killed. One of his targets was Mexican photographer Raul Estrella “I heard the bullet whiz by my head and that’s when I left,” Estrella later recalled.

Raul Estrella, a photographer for El Universal who won an international photojournalism award for his coverage of the Oaxaca conflict, said that Pedro Carmona, a municipal official, shot at him when he noticed Estrella taking his picture shortly before Brad Will was killed.

“I heard the bullet whiz by my head and that’s when I left,” Estrella, who took a now-famous photograph of Carmona and other Santa Lucia del Camino officials shooting at the protesters, said in an interview in 2007.

The Will family and the Physicians for Human Rights investigators both pointed out the federal government’s failure to investigate 17 other murder cases during the 2006 Oaxaca conflict where witness testimony and photographic and video evidence indicate police participation in the killings.


“The involvement of civilian-clad police officers in death squads has been well documented,” said Mexican journalist Diego Osorno.


The federal government colluded to cover up Ulises Ruiz’s crimes, Osorno said, to secure the PRI’s support for President Felipe Calderon’s contested 2006 election victory, as well as for energy reforms that include the controversial privatization of sectors of Mexico’s state oil company.


Calderon's National Action Party, or PAN, has traditionally been a rival of the PRI.


“Calderon has no other option,” he said. “He came to power very weak and that has made him beholden to more powerful groups, such as the PRI.”

THE PGR THEORY
The PGR’s case against Juan Manuel Martinez and the other members of the APPO is built around a single witness’ testimony. That witness, Adolfo Feria, says that he saw Juan Manuel Martinez fire the fatal shot. It turns out, however, that Adolfo Feria is the cousin of the mayor of Santa Lucia del Camino, Manuel Martinez Feria, whose police and city officials led the armed attack on the APPO protesters.

The Merida connection:

THE MERIDA INITIATIVE

On July 1, George W. Bush signed legislation approving the Merida Initiative, a $400 million program to aid Mexico’s military, police and judicial systems. That legislation, often referred to as Plan Mexico, included a paragraph calling for justice in Brad Will’s case.

“The state and Federal investigations into the October 27, 2006, killing in Oaxaca of American citizen Bradley Will have been flawed,” the law states, “and the Secretary of State is directed, not later than 45 days after enactment of this Act and 120 days thereafter, to submit a report to the Committees on Appropriations detailing progress in conducting a thorough, credible, and transparent investigation to identify the perpetrators of this crime and bring them to justice.”

On September 23, Congressman Donald Manzullo (R-IL) sent an angry letter to the Committee on Appropriations and President Bush, calling on them to suspend funding for the Merida Initiative until the Mexican government carries out a serious investigation.

Renata Rendon, advocacy director for the Americas with Amnesty International USA, said the PGR investigation should cause alarm for the U.S. government, which has become a major financial supporter of the PGR.

“This should be a real red flag for the U.S. federal government, which is sending hundreds of millions of dollars to the Mexican government, some of which will go to the PGR,” she said in a telephone interview.

Kathy Will said that her family is pressuring Congress to withhold Merida Initiative funds from the Mexican government.

“I don’t call that a democracy,” she said, “a place where they don’t hold somebody accountable, at any level of government, when they are guilty. The impunity in Mexico is unreal!”

The Rule of Impunity: Mexican Government Ignores Overwhelming Evidence, Charges Oaxacan Activists with Brad Will's Murder | The Indypendent