The Supreme Court of Peru invalidated a lower court ruling which cleared a former mayor accused of killing a journalist in 2004, La República reports. Luiza Valdez, ex mayor of Coronel Portillo, will be tried again for allegedly masterminding the murder of journalist Alberto Rivera Fernández.
“The court argued that the [appeals court] did not properly evaluate the evidence presented by…the prosecution, and there were serious irregularities in the conduct of the trial," said Carlos Rivera, the lawyer representing the slain journalist’s family, quoted by La Primera.
Rivera, the former host of the radio show “Transparency” in the city of Pucallpa – where Coronel Portillo is located – had severely criticized Valdez’s administration and accused him of connections to drug trafficking, EFE explains. Several individuals who were convicted of murdering the journalist initially told the police that Valdez masterminded the killing, however they later retracted their stories.
Note from the editor: This story was originally published by the Knight Center’s blog Journalism in the Americas, the predecessor of LatAm Journalism Review.
