Gregorio Rodríguez Hernández

New York, April 7, 2008—Four men have been convicted and sentenced to 11 years apiece in the November 2004 murder of Mexican photographer Gregorio Rodríguez Hernández. The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes the convictions as an important step against impunity in attacks on the press. 

Judge Daniel Armenta Rentería convicted former Escuinapa Police Chief Abel Enríquez Zavala on charges that he acted as an intermediary between the mastermind and the perpetrators, court secretary Juan Carlos López told CPJ. Pedro Salas Franco, Francisco Pineda Sarmiento, and Elías Alvarez González were convicted of carrying out the crime, López said. Investigators have not publicly specified a motive or identified the person who commissioned the killing.

JULY 28, 2005
Posted: August 17, 2005

Sugey Estrada, Noroeste
THREATENED

Estrada, the correspondent for the Mazatlán edition of the daily Noroeste in the town of Escuinapa, in the northwestern state of Sinaloa, was threatened by the local police chief.

New York, July 7, 2005—An ex-police chief in Mexico is being held for alleged involvement in the November 2004 gangland-style slaying of Gregorio Rodríguez Hernández, a photographer with the Mazatlán edition of the newspaper El Debate, in the northwestern state of Sinaloa, according to press reports.

Abel Enríquez Zavala was detained on Sunday after investigators linked him to a hit man working for the Sinaloa drug cartel, the Mexican press reported. He has not been formally charged nor has the precise nature of his alleged involvement been described. Enríquez was suspended in December 2004 from his job heading the police force in the town of Escuinapa.

New York, December 1, 2004—A newspaper photographer was gunned down Sunday in front of his family in a cafeteria in the northwestern state of Sinaloa, home to some of Mexico's top drug traffickers. The Committee to Protect Journalists is investigating the slaying to determine whether it was connected to his journalistic work.