Brandon Jourdan comments,
“As a close friend of Brad Will and someone who has looked through Will’s full-resolution raw footage, I am very upset by the attorney general’s office report. The evidence is overwhelmingly against the close range theory. The original autopsy results were that both shots were fired from a long distance by the same gun. Read More
November 5th, 2007 – Mexico Reporter writes: Brad Will was shot by an assailant (s) just 50 centimeters away, and not from a distance of 30 meters as originally thought, according to the latest findings of the investigation of the Attorney General on the case in Mexico.
Results from the investigation into the death of the American IndyMedia journalist, shot dead in Oaxaca just over a year ago, suggest that he could have been killed by fellow protesters or members of the People’s Assembly of Oaxaca (APPO), as well as government agents or infiltrators, according to newspaper reports in Mexico last week.
The finding that he was shot at such close range contrasts with past reports on the murder of the media worker, which placed his assassins at more than 30 meters from him, and also goes against evidence and reports that suggest that Will was in fact murdered by Government sympathisers or agents.
“Despite having evidence of who or who might be the murderers of the American shot dead on 27 October 2006 in the village of Santa Lucia del Camino, Oaxaca, the federal agency still has not established clearly whether the killers belong to the People’s Assembly of the People of Oaxaca (APPO), or a group that could be linked to the state government, or whether they were infiltrators”,” reads the report in Thursday’s Milenio.
The newspaper report also noted that the Special Prosecutors Office for Crimes Against Journalists is very close to ‘solving the crime’.
These findings will dismay groups lobbying for justice in the case of Brad Will, such as The Friends of Brad Will and the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Although two suspects were arrested late last year following the shooting of the journalist, they were soon released without charge. A number of NGO’s, including Reporters Without Borders, expressed concern at the release of Abel Santiago Zárate, the official in charge of public security in Santa Lucia del Camino (in Oaxaca state), and his bodyguard, Orlando Manuel Aguilar Coello, both of whom were arrested on suspicion of firing the shots that killed Will.
Please go to the journalism category for more stories on this issue.
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reposted comment at Mexico Reporter:
Brandon Jourdan // November 5, 2007 at 11:12 pm
As a close friend of Brad Will and someone who has looked through Will’s full-resolution raw footage, I am very upset by the attorney general’s office report. The evidence is overwhelmingly against the close range theory. The original autopsy results were that both shots were fired from a long distance by the same gun.
Repeatedly the Mexican government has worked to cover-up human rights violations in Mexico and in this case has given Oaxaca’s police officers and sympathizers of the PRI the impunity to commit murder against the people of Oaxaca and journalists covering their story. In the lead up to this release, Friends and Family of Brad Will worried that this report would ignore eye witness reports from journalists and onlookers, video evidence, and other forensic evidence that proves that Will was in fact shot by PRI thugs. We are not ‘dismayed’ as this report states, but in fact more determined to seek justice over the many deaths that have occurred because of corrupt politicians and outlaw paramilitaries.
The Friends of Brad Will are currently pushing for justice for Brad and all those killed in Mexico and fighting US legislation, such as Plan Mexico, that would give more military equipment to a country with a deplorable human rights record.
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