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Alert

Two municipal employees arrested in connection with journalist's murder

(IPYS/IFEX) - Two employees of the Coronel Portillo provincial municipality, in Pucallpa, Ucayali region, were arrested in connection with the 21 April 2004 murder of journalist Alberto Rivera Fernández.

The two individuals arrested are Roy Gavino Cullqui Saurino, aged 33, an employee of the provincial council's press and public relations department, and Martín Ignacio Flores Vásquez, who works in public relations for the Coronel Portillo Municipal Drinking Water and Sewage Company (Empresa Municipal de Agua Potable y Alcantarillado de Coronel Portillo, EMAPACOPSA). Mayor Luis Valdez Villacorta is president of the board of EMAPACOPSA.

Cullqui Saurino was detained on the evening of 1 June, while he was at the municipality's offices. Police arrested Flores Vásquez at dawn on 4 June. He suffers from medical problems and was admitted to the Pucallpa hospital.

Judge Víctor Ortiz Prada, of the Coronel Portillo First Criminal Court, ordered Cullqui Saurino's and Flores Vásquez's arrests. The judge said they had been implicated in the crime by the individuals alleged to have arranged Rivera Fernández's assassination, who had been arrested a few weeks prior to the issuing of the arrest warrants.

Judge Ortiz Prada's ruling sheds new light on the case. On 29 May, a month and a half after the assassination, the Pucallpa police had determined in the course of their investigation that the journalist's murder was a crime of passion. Police announced that an individual named Samuel Gonzáles Pinedo had ordered and paid for Rivera Fernández's assassination.

Gonzáles Pinedo confessed that he paid 500 soles (approx. US$144) to two assassins, known as "Gatillo" and "Chino". He reportedly asked them to scare the journalist so that he would stop flirting with Gonzáles Pinedo's wife, but did not intend for them to kill him. Gonzáles Pinedo also said that his cousin, Erwin Pérez Liendo, known as "Panpayurac", had allowed the two assassins to use his vehicle to drive to Rivera Fernández's house, where the murder occurred.

Pérez Liendo was also arrested and his testimony led to the issuing of the warrants for the arrest of Cullqui Saurino and Flores Vásquez.