The investigation into the Alfredo Jiménez Mota “is stalled due to a climate of corruption, protection of drug traffickers and complicity of public officials surrounding the criminal process”, declares an open letter from friends and residents in the Mexican state of Sonora where the young reporter for the Hermosillo newspaper El Imparcial went missing more than four years ago.

The letter received by the IAPA, signed by Daniel Valdez Sánchez and dated December 9, 2009, calls for the intervention and collaboration of the Mexican Attorney General’s Office, the National Human Rights Commission, the State Human Rights Commission, the Sonora State Congress and news media and journalists in general to shed light on the disappearance of Jiménez Mota on April 2, 2005.

The petition also discloses the name of a prison inmate who is said to know the identity of those allegedly involved in the case, but who “has refused to hand over all the relevant information … for the criminals to be effectively arrested, due to the climate of corruption, influence peddling, cover-up, protection of drug traffickers and string-pulling surrounding the criminal process.”

It accuses the authorities of not heeding calls for justice and urges then “to proceed with urgency with a review and investigation of the dossier” and take into account “the data, evidence and witnesses [that exist] for the immediate solving of the case.” It asks the press “to show solidarity and not keep the silence that for nearly five years has continued to favor impunity.”

In March this year the IAPA submitted the Jiménez Mota case to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights for its consideration, on the basis that officials in charge of the investigations have shown no progress in seeking to determine his whereabouts.