June 22, 2004
Case: Francisco Ortiz Franco
Publisher of the weekly Zeta, Tijuana, Baja California.
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He was shot in full daylight. He was heading home with his two young children when some gunmen approached his car and shot him in the head and neck.
Sentences reversed and acquittals: (+)
Released / Sentence commuted: (+)
Jailed awaiting trial: (+)
Suspects not charged: (+)
Those allegedly involved: Jorge Briceño López (El Cholo), Jorge Eduardo Ronquillo Delgado (El Niño) and Arturo Villareal Heredia (El Nalgón). The Mexican Attorney General blamed the murder on the Arellanos’ cartel.
As of October 2007 no one had been brought to trial. However, it was learned that members of Tijuana cartel (Francisco Javier Arellano Félix and Arturo Villarreal Heredia), confessed in the United States to having been involved in a number of murders.
On August 15, 2004 the Mexican Attorney General’s Office brought the case to federal jurisdiction.
The drug traffickers belonging to the Arellanos’ cartel were said to have been upset by a published report by Ortiz in which he identified 71 members of that criminal organization.
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