TIJUANA, Mexico — Ten suspects have been detained in connection with last month’s shooting death of Tijuana photojournalist Margarito Martínez Esquivel, the top prosecutor for the state of Baja California confirmed Friday.
Attorney Gen. Ricardo Iván Carpio Sánchez said an operation was still under way early Friday when information about five of the arrests was made public by Gen. Luis Cresencio Sandoval, Mexico’s defense secretary, during President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s daily morning media briefing.
Martínez, who covered crime and security issues in Tijuana, was shot to death Jan. 17 outside his home as he left for work. A month earlier, he had made an official complaint about threats he’d received while working as a journalist and was in the process of seeking protection under a government program.
He also worked as a “fixer” assisting international news outlets including the BBC, as well as The Los Angeles Times and the San Diego Union-Tribune.
Carpio said prosecutors have not ruled out Martínez’s journalistic work as a possible motive for his killing. He said investigators were working to confirm the identities and ages of those arrested, but it has been verified that some have criminal records. Officials indicated they were linked to an organized criminal group but declined to name that organization.
The arrests were made at dawn in Tijuana, during the search of six different properties, where authorities also seized an AR-15-style rifle, a Smith & Wesson handgun, phones and drugs, including cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine, according to Carpio and Sandoval.
The houses searched were possible “home bases” for drug sales that were linked to the homicide by investigative agencies.
The weapons will be tested to determine whether they were used in Martínez’s slaying or in any other documented crimes, the officials said.
The arrests were based on intelligence from a task force made of several Mexican agencies, including the defense ministry, the federal prosecutor’s office, military police, the navy and Baja California authorities.
Martínez’s mother, Eglantina Esquivel, arrived at the attorney general’s office Friday just as an afternoon news conference was ending.
“We are here trying to find out the causes, motives and reasons why this happened, why they did it, by whose orders, because this was an order,” Esquivel said, responding to news of the arrests. Martínez “didn’t kill a single spider … that’s why I want to know the cause, the motive, the reason.”
On Thursday, the day before the arrests, she had pleaded for justice for her son’s killing to Mexico’s deputy interior minister responsible for human rights.
Less than a week after Martínez’s killing, a second Tijuana journalist, Lourdes Maldonado López, was shot dead in her car in front of her home. Three suspects were arrested Feb. 8 in connection with her killing.
Little information has been released about either investigation.
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