Peruvian TV journalist Flores, 36, was riding home on his
motorcycle on the Panamericana Norte Highway in the northwestern province of
Casma when a hooded gunman in the back of a taxi shot him in the abdomen, local
press reports said. The journalist managed to ride his
motorcycle to a local hospital and was then transported to a hospital in Chimbote where he died.
Flores ran and hosted the Casma-based Channel 6 news
program “Visión Agraria.” His wife, Mercedes Cueva Abanto, told reporters that he had received
anonymous death threats via text message for several months prior to his murder
and that someone had vandalized his motorcycle. She said the threats apparently stemmed from corruption
accusations Flores had made against Marco Rivero Huertas, mayor of Comandante
Noel district. In an interview with Radio Santo Domingo,
Isabel Flores, the journalist’s sister, said her brother told her in the
hospital before his death that he believed the mayor had ordered the killing.
Rivero told reporters he had once sued Flores
for defamation but did not elaborate on the circumstances. He said he had
nothing to do with the journalist’s murder and that he was in “solidarity with
the victim and his family,” press reports said. Police arrested two
suspects in the killing in September 2011, according to press reports.