Meanwhile, a group of armed men who were widely photographed shooting directly in the direction where Brad stood—men who many human rights groups, independent investigators and Brad Will’s family believe are responsible for the crime—remain free.
Will, 36, died on
October 27, 2006, as he reported from the
On the afternoon of his death, Will covered a street battle between armed plainclothes pro-government men and protesters, including members of the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca (APPO), the organization leading the anti-government movement. During the clash, Will and other journalists stood alongside the demonstrators, who hurled rocks while the armed men fired shots. A photographer for a Mexican newspaper was shot in the leg, while another local photojournalist heard bullets whiz by his head. Minutes later, two bullets killed Will.
The Oaxaca medical examiner's office and an independent study conducted in Mexico by the Boston-based nonprofit Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) concluded that the bullet wounds on Will’s body corresponded to shots fired at long range—at a distance corresponding to witness accounts of the armed men shooting into the crowd of protesters where Will stood. Days after the shooting, Mexican authorities questioned two local government officials identified at the murder scene as being part of the armed group of men. They were released after a state judge concluded they were not close enough to have shot Will.
In October 2008,
Mexican federal prosecutors
charged Martínez with the murder. The arrest was largely based on the claim
that the shots fired at Will came from close
range and likely originated from one of the protesters standing near him—a
claim that cleared the pro-government gunmen of the crime. Groups such as the
PHR, along with Amnesty International and
Martínez admitted to participating in the APPO protests, but the government has not produced a witness to the murder who can also place Martínez at the scene. Mexican officials also have not detailed a motive for the killing or produced a weapon.
The Will family emphasizes that
their son’s murder case is marred by irregularities and is politicized. Ruiz,
the Oaxacan governor who remains in office, saw his power heavily tested in
2006 during the APPO-led movement, which accused him of rigging the 2004 state
elections.
These groups, along
with the Will family, also voice strong concern over the lack of investigation
and arrests in the killing of at least 18 other protesters during the 2006
conflict in
On October 14,
Monica Campbell, CPJ's former Mexico representative, is a 2009-10 fellow at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard.
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Dear Monica,
I'm an Australian journalism student, living in Newcastle, New South Wales, two hours nort of Sydney.
I had not realised how many journalists and media workers are killed, mostly by calculated assassination, each year in countries like Mexico, Russia and the Phillipines. It appears that we only hear of the big stories, the foreign correspondants who travel willingly and knowingly inot dangerous areas and are unfortunately captured and often killed, like Daniel Pearl for example.
Since investigating the issue of deliberate attacks on journalists, I have discovered many stories just like this one about Brad Will, originally a no-name to me, until I read your blog entry detailing his demise and the horrific fact that the Mexican government may be offering impunity to the actual killers, while the wrong man is behind bars.
Why don't they teach us this in University? We only know about the highly publicised cases, such as the Balibo Five, Australisn journalists murdered in East Timor 30 years ago. Why are the many media workers, the shit-kickers, and for some reason, seemingly expendable others given little or no airplay?
I would love to attend a class about this whilst doing my degree. I would love to know the many costs of striving to report the truth that journalists face in their own country.
We are continually discussing the notion that the newspaper will die, but it seems that the news reporter is becoming the highest rating fatality these days.