10 May 2008
Jorge Mérida Pérez
Shooting
Jorge Mérida Pérez, a correspondent in Quetzaltenango province for the national Guatemalan daily Prensa Libre was shot to death in his home.
At 4 p.m. on Saturday, at least one unidentified individual stormed into the journalist’s home in Coatepeque, 130 miles (210 kilometers) southwest of Guatemala City. Mérida, 40, who was working at his computer at the time of the attack, was shot four times in the head, Prensa Libre reported. His 14-year-old son was in the house but was not injured. According to Miguel Ángel Méndez, Prensa Libre’s deputy director, the journalist had reported recently on local drug trafficking and government corruption. In the weeks prior to his death, Mérida told colleagues and family members that he had received multiple threats.
The journalist did not seem overly concerned with the threats and did not give any more details, according to Méndez. Brenda Dery Muñoz, a local prosecutor for crimes related to drug trafficking, told the Committee to Protect Journalists that on at least one occasion Mérida and other reporters were threatened after covering a recent police seizure of 440 lbs. (200 kilograms) of cocaine. According to Méndez, national authorities, who are in charge of the investigation, are focusing on Mérida’s work as the main motive behind his killing. Rosa Salazar Marroquín, the spokeswoman for the office of the special prosecutor for crimes against journalists and union members, told CPJ that the prosecutor is investigating links between Mérida’s death and his journalism.
