After being held for 19 days on questionable drug-trafficking charges in Puentecilla prison in the central state of Guanajuato, El Tiempo publisher Jesús Lemus Barajas was transferred Tuesday to a high-security federal prison in Puente Grande, in the neighbouring state of Jalisco, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported.
The authorities said he had to be moved because he was a “dangerous suspect” but El Tiempo editor Magdalena Pérez Sánchez said the move was “part of an entirely deliberate strategy to obstruct his defence and portray him as a criminal.” El Tiempo is a local daily based in La Piedad, in the southern state of Michoacán.
Pérez and a RSF representative were received Tuesday by the Chamber of Deputies special commission for monitoring attacks on journalists. The commission has announced its intention to visit the newspaper publisher in prison and to hold a news conference later today to condemn his detention.
