A third defendant in the 2022 killing of Tijuana photojournalist Margarito Martínez opted for a trial rather than a plea bargain in a hearing that finally took place Tuesday after being postponed five times during the past year.
Prosecutors are now seeking a 60-year prison sentence if he is convicted of premeditated murder.
Christian – identified only by his first name, as is protocol in ongoing cases in Mexico – is accused by prosecutors of ordering Martínez’s assassination on someone else’s orders and of demanding a video to confirm it.
Martínez, who covered crime for several Mexican media outlets, was shot dead in front of his home in the Camino Verde neighborhood of Tijuana on January 17, 2022.
Two other defendants — Adrián Ramos, nicknamed “El Uber,” who shot Martínez three times in the head, and José Ochoa, alias “El Huesos,” who recorded the murder remotely with a phone — were sentenced to 25 years each in December 2022.
Last spring, the defendant asked the judge for additional time to consider a 25-year sentence initially proposed by the prosecution. But his lawyer failed to show up for the next two hearings later that year, and the judge requested a new lawyer for the accused.
The affair was postponed twice, due to weather and scheduling conflicts.
On Tuesday, after a new judge ruled it was the last opportunity to accept the plea bargain, Christian – also known by the nicknames “El Cabo 16” or “El Jaguar” – confirmed his intention to plead case before a court, for which no trial took place. the date has not yet been set.
During Tuesday’s five-hour virtual hearing, prosecutors painstakingly detailed all of the evidence that will be presented at trial, including interviews with two witnesses, one of whom was shot to death last year, as well as WhatsApp conversations and data collected from the three accused. ‘ mobile phones.
Martínez’s widow and her legal advisor were also present at the hearing.
Hiram Sanchez Zamora, chief prosecutor of central Baja California, holds a press conference to update the investigation into the shooting of photojournalist Margarito Martinez on January 18, 2022 in Tijuana.
(Alejandro Tamayo/The San Diego Union-Tribune)
Christian asked the judge to call as witnesses Ramos and Ochoa, who are serving their sentences at El Hongo prison, in Tecate. Christian, currently awaiting trial in the same prison, said their testimonies could be “useful in clarifying the facts”.
Over objections from the prosecution and Martinez’s widow’s legal advisor, the judge agreed to include both testimonies “so as not to violate the fundamental rights” of the defendant.
At the state government’s weekly press conference on Wednesday, Baja California Attorney General María Elena Andrade said the prosecutor’s office has a “strong case” and will not appeal of the judge’s decision to include the testimony of the two convicted defendants in the trial. case.
Prosecutors previously said it appeared Christian acted on orders from a criminal boss known by the nickname “El Cabo 20.” Former Baja California Attorney General Ricardo Iván Carpio said in 2022 that “El Cabo 20” was behind Martínez’s murder.
Prosecutors said “El Cabo 20” may have wrongly assumed Martínez was involved in social media posts and an article in a Tijuana weekly that denounced his family, providing a possible motive for the killing.
“El Cabo 20” is being held in Mexico after being charged with murder for the killing of another man. He was not mentioned during Tuesday’s hearing.
In January 2022, Martínez and veteran journalist Lourdes Maldonado were assassinated in Tijuana within a week. Three men were sentenced to 20 and 24 years in prison in Maldonado’s case. The person who ordered the killing and the motive are still unknown.
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