Mexico has asked the USA to extradite the suspected mastermind Murder of journalist Javier Valdez after he was arrested on drug charges, the attorney general said.
Damaso Lopez Serrano – who the Justice Department says is known as “Mini Lic” — is accused of ordering the 2017 killing of Valdez, an award-winning journalist and AFP contributor who covered the drug trade.
The alleged former high-ranking member of the Sinaloa Cartel was arrested Friday in Virginia on charges of trafficking fentanyl. Lopez Serrano is the son of Damaso Lopez Nunezwho began a battle for control of the cartel after the arrest of its leader, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.
Mexico’s Attorney General Alejandro Gertz called Lopez Serrano the “mastermind” behind Valdez’s killing.
“We have already prosecuted the remaining perpetrators and they are in prison,” he told a news conference.
Valdez was shot dead in his car on May 15, 2017 in the Sinaloa state capital of Culiacan, near the offices of his weekly newspaper Riodoce.
Enric Marti / AP
Investigators believe Lopez Serrano ordered the attack because he was angered by information released by Valdez about the Sinaloa cartel’s infighting.
Mexico has made multiple extradition requests for Lopez Serrano, who turned himself in to U.S. authorities on drug trafficking charges in July 2017 and cooperated in exchange for a reduced sentence. The USA back then the Drug Enforcement Administration said Lopez Serrano was considered “the highest-ranking Mexican cartel leader ever to surrender in the United States.”
He was released from prison on parole in 2022.
Gertz said Mexico had requested Lopez Serrano’s extradition “on countless occasions” but Washington refused because he had become a “protected witness” and had “given them a lot of information.”
He expressed hope that with the recent arrest of Lopez Serrano, there are “more than enough reasons” for the United States to finally grant Mexico’s request.
Rebecca Blackwell/AP
Mexico is one of the countries in the world plagued by violence related to drug trafficking most dangerous countries for journalistssay news advocacy groups.
According to Reporters Without Borders, more than 150 journalists have been killed in Mexico since 1994 – and 2022 was one of them deadliest years ever for journalists in Mexico, with at least 15 dead.
Media professionals are regularly targeted in Mexicooften in direct retaliation for their work on issues such as corruption and the country’s notoriously violent drug traffickers.
Most recently, in October, Gunmen killed a journalist whose Facebook news page reported on the violent state of Michoacan in western Mexico. Then, less than 24 hours later, an entertainment reporter was in the western city of Colima killed in a restaurant she owned.
