JOURNALISTIC ORGANIZATIONS DEMAND INVESTIGATION AND PROTECTION FROM DEATH THREATS AGAINST REPORTERS IN ECUADOR BY DRUG TRAFFICKING MAFIAS​

Within the case called Metástasis, a mega investigation being carried out by the Attorney General’s Office of Ecuador, chats have been revealed between the drug boss Leandro Norero (murdered in an Ecuadorian prison in October 2022) and Xavier Jordán, a fugitive from Ecuadorian justice, who lives in Miami, USA, and who the Attorney General’s Office presumes is the administrator of the deceased drug lord’s assets.

In one of the many conversations revealed by the Prosecutor’s Office, these people talk about killing the prominent journalist Sara Ortiz, of the newspaper Expreso, who was also part of the newsroom of the newspaper El Comercio.

The conversation between Norero and Jordán in which they talk about killing journalist Ortiz is dated July 22, 2022 and is contained in the phone that the former used illegally in prison and which the authorities seized after her murder. The conversations extracted from that cell phone have led to the prosecution of 31 people, including national and provincial judges, prosecutors, police (including the former anti-narcotics chief) and the president of the National Council of the Judiciary. The Prosecutor’s Office has asked to link eight other people to the process, among them Xavier Jordán.

In the chat, Jordán asks Norero to help him punish the journalists and executives of the newspaper Expreso. He tells the boss: “Give it to a journalist as if it was an accident to Sara Ortiz, no one else fucks”.

Jordan suggests that everything should look like “a robbery of her cell phone and that she escaped during a struggle”. He “escaped” a shot, it must be assumed.

Without naming names, they also speak of attacks against journalists from other media, “one from Ecuavisa” and “one from Teleamazonas”, two prestigious television stations in Ecuador.

“Hp will have to think well what they are talking about” (sic), says Jordán, to which Norero responds: “Those men give their word without fear of anything”. To which Jordán insists again on his request to leave “nothing more than a precedent”.

At the time, Fernando Villavicencio had denounced the links between Norero and Jordán. Villavicencio was a presidential candidate and an attack was perpetrated against him that killed him on August 9, 2023, in Quito, in the middle of the electoral campaign.

In the chats, which the Prosecutor’s Office has made available to the public at this link, Norero also says that he was the one who ordered the killing of a journalist, Gerardo Delgado, although it seems that it was a mistake, the criminal attack was to be perpetrated against journalist Patricio Anchundia, so that he would not reveal a video.

The National Union of Journalists (UNP) of Ecuador issued a statement in which it emphasizes that the chats reveal the planning of the criminal attack against Ortiz, the confession of Delgado’s crime and the follow-ups against Villavicencio.

In view of this, the UNP requests “the Cordicom and the Committee for the Protection of Journalist Risks to activate protocols and articulate with the owners of the media the necessary measures to guarantee the safety of colleagues, who because of their daily work are in the sights of criminal structures”.

Cordicom is the Communication Council of Ecuador. This governmental organism has already made a statement. It assured that it “supports the forceful actions led by the Attorney General of the State, Diana Salazar.

It also stated: “Organized crime is an enemy that also attacks journalistic work; therefore, we must close ranks in favor of truth and justice. The rights to information and communication are essential in a democratic society”.

For its part, the NGO Fundamedios considered that the threats revealed are “a direct attack on the integrity of journalists in Ecuador”.

The organization urged “the Ecuadorian and U.S. authorities to take immediate measures to guarantee the safety of the threatened journalists and to thoroughly investigate these threats. In addition, we call on the international community and human rights organizations to unite in condemning this flagrant act against press freedom”.

We urge the authorities to take the necessary measures to prevent future acts of violence against journalists and to preserve the free exercise of the press.

The Publishers Association of the European Union, Latin America and the Caribbean, EditoRed, joins in condemning these threats against the physical and psychological integrity of journalists who, with ethics and spirit of service to society, have become targets of drug trafficking mafias, whose tentacles extend beyond Ecuador’s borders.

EditoRed also asks the authorities for a thorough investigation of these threats. Although one of those who planned them is dead, the risk is still latent, as the mafias continue to operate and ethical and courageous journalists will not remain silent.

He also expects the Ecuadorian government to implement the necessary security protocols to protect the lives of the threatened journalists, who are only fulfilling their delicate task of informing Ecuador and the world about the most important issues so that society is well informed and can make decisions accordingly.

—-

This text is free to use.