Step by step: this was the crime against Armando Linares, the eighth journalist killed in 2022

On March 15, Mexico recorded the eighth murder of a journalist so far in 2022: it was Armando Linares López, director of the Monitor Michoacán portal, who had already denounced threats against him for carrying out his work in the municipality where he was killed, in Zitácuaro, Michoacán.

As part of the progress made in the investigation, this March 17, the Ministry of Public Security (SSP) reported the visual identification of two alleged perpetrators of who were awarded the crime following a monitoring carried out in support of the images of a video surveillance camera.

According to the account of the facts, shortly before 13:15 hours two hawks began to make trips in the street of the victim's house on board a motorcycle: one of those identified was observed wearing football dress, while the other was wearing a motorcycle helmet.

According to Ricardo Mejía, head of the SSP, the subjects would have posed as football fans with an interest in advertising in the media directed by Armando. As a result, they also managed to meet with some local residents.

Even when both arrived at the site together, the cameras caught that they separated for a few minutes. Shortly thereafter, however, they reconvened to establish the first instructions for the assassination. Thus, both suspected hawks withdrew at 13:24 hours.

In a second act, at 18:22 hours an alleged hit man, wearing a suit and red tie, arrived at the same place where he greeted with Armando Linares, whom he murdered a few minutes later and fled the scene of the crime on foot.

Following up on the events, the Secretariat was able to recover the faces of two alleged perpetrators: the one in football dress and the one in black suits. This data, because there is still no information on possible names or criminal groups; meanwhile, the subject in the helmet remains completely unknown.

For their part, elements of the Attorney General's Office (FGE) found the body of Armando Linares in a ventral position with several firearms hit inside the building on Emilio García Norte street, Carabanchel colony.

It should be recalled that Linares had defended his colleague, Roberto Toledo, at the insistence of the federal authorities for denying his journalistic practice after his murder “mean and cowardly”, last January 31.

According to first reports, some members of the Monitor Michoacán team had also been threatened with death, which is why it was suspected that Toledo was one of its targets after revealing acts of corruption

It was under this tenor that the Ministry of the Interior (Segob), was that the Ministry of the Interior offered to stick them to the National and State Protection Mechanism; an offer that Armando would have denied on several occasions, according to Ricardo Mejía.

This position follows that expressed by Alejandro Encinas, Undersecretary for Human Rights, Population and Migration of La Segob, on March 16: “He refused to receive protection from the State Government and unfortunately we have the consequences there”, he stressed.

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