Mexico has asked the United States to extradite the alleged mastermind of the case. murder of journalist Javier Valdez after being arrested on drug charges, the attorney general said.
Damaso Lopez Serrano – nicknamed “Mini Lic,” according to the Justice Department, is accused of ordering the 2017 assassination of Valdez, an award-winning journalist and AFP contributor who covered drug trafficking.
The alleged former high-ranking member of the Sinaloa Cartel was arrested Friday in Virginia on charges of trafficking fentanyl. López Serrano is the son of Damaso Lopez Nunezwho launched a fight for control of the cartel following the arrest of its leader, Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.
Mexico’s attorney general, Alejandro Gertz, described Lopez Serrano as the “mastermind” behind Valdez’s murder.
“We have already prosecuted the other perpetrators and they are in prison,” he told a press conference.
Valdez was shot and killed in his car on May 15, 2017 in Culiacan, the capital of Sinaloa state, near the offices of his weekly Riodoce.
Enric Marti / AP
Investigators believe López Serrano ordered the attack because he was angry over information Valdez released about the Sinaloa Cartel’s internal power struggles.
Mexico has filed multiple extradition requests for Lopez Serrano, who surrendered to U.S. authorities in July 2017 on drug trafficking charges and cooperated in exchange for a reduced sentence. At the time, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration said Lopez Serrano was “believed to be the highest-ranking Mexican cartel leader to ever visit the United States.”
He was conditionally released from prison in 2022.
Gertz said Mexico had requested “countless times” for Lopez Serrano to be handed over, but Washington had refused because he had become a “protected witness” and was “giving them a lot of information.”
He expressed hope that with the latest arrest of Lopez Serrano, “there are enough reasons” for the United States to finally grant Mexico’s request.
Rebecca Blackwell/AP
Devastated by violence linked to drug trafficking, Mexico is one of the most affected countries in the world. most dangerous countries for journalistssay media advocacy groups.
According to Reporters Without Borders, more than 150 journalists have been killed in Mexico since 1994. The year 2022 was one of deadliest years ever for journalists in Mexico, with at least 15 killed.
Media workers are regularly targeted in Mexicooften in direct retaliation for their work on issues such as corruption and the country’s notoriously violent drug traffickers.
More recently, in October, gunmen killed a journalist whose Facebook news page covered the violent state of Michoacan in western Mexico. Then, less than 24 hours later, an entertainment reporter from the western city of Colima was killed in a restaurant she owned.
