Peruvian journalist attack by gunman, dies

A Peruvian journalist died last September 8 after he was shot by an unidentified assailant on September 6 in Casma, in the northwestern province of Peru, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reported.

Television journalist Pedro Alfonso Flores Silva, 36,  was on his motorcycle on the Panamericana Norte Highway in Casma when he was intercepted by a taxi. A hooded assailant got out from the back of the vehicle and shot him once in the stomach.

The International Press Institute (IPI) reported that “diagnosed with severe internal bleeding and infection due to the bullet, Flores Silva was taken from one hospital to another, and then remained in intensive care after undergoing complex surgery. He died in Nuevo Chimbote, in the Ancash region of northern Peru.”

Flores Silva ran and hosted the Casma-based Channel 6 news program “Visión Agraria“.

His wife, Mercedes Cueva Abanto said that her husband had received anonymous death threats through text messages for several months prior to his murder.

Cueva Abanto believes the threats were in response to accusations of corruption her husband had made in his programs against Comandante Noel district Mayor Marco Rivero Huertas, but the mayor quickly denied any connection with the crime.

IPI, meanwhile, reported that Rivero Huertas  had filed a defamation lawsuit against the journalist. IPI added that “Rivero Huertas and Flores were formerly friends, but the mayor claimed that after he won the elections and refused to hire Flores, the reporter began to criticize his activity.”

Flores Silva was the second journalist assassinated in Peru this year. In May, radio host Julio Castillo Narváez was gunned down while having lunch in Virú City. (CPJ/IFEX)