Journalists Killed in 2011 - Motive Confirmed: Pedro Alfonso Flores Silva

Channel 6
September 8, 2011, in Chimbote, Peru

Peruvian TV journalist Flores, 36, was riding home on his motorcycle on the Panamericana Norte Highway in the northwestern province of Casma when a hooded gunman in the back of a taxi shot him in the abdomen, local press reports said. The journalist managed to ride his motorcycle to a local hospital and was then transported to a hospital in Chimbote where he died.

Flores ran and hosted the Casma-based Channel 6 news program "Visión Agraria." His wife, Mercedes Cueva Abanto, told reporters that he had received anonymous death threats via text message for several months prior to his murder and that someone had vandalized his motorcycle. She said the threats apparently stemmed from corruption accusations Flores had made against Marco Rivero Huertas, mayor of Comandante Noel district. In an interview with Radio Santo Domingo, Isabel Flores, the journalist's sister, said her brother told her in the hospital before his death that he believed the mayor had ordered the killing.

Rivero told reporters he had once sued Flores for defamation but did not elaborate on the circumstances. He said he had nothing to do with the journalist's murder and that he was in "solidarity with the victim and his family," press reports said. Police arrested two suspects in the killing in September 2011, according to press reports.