The Sonora Attorney General’s Office reported the arrest of the alleged murderer of yaqui indigenous leader Tomás Rojo Valencia.
The remains of Rojo Valencia, 54, were located on June 17 in a clandestine grave in the community of Vícam, in the municipality of Guaymas, after being reported missing.
Francisco Hiram N, alias “El Morocho,” 26, has already been linked to the trial and since 3 July has been in pretrial detention for the crime of homicide qualified with premeditation, treachery and advantage, and criminal association, the Prosecutor General’s Office reported.
“The possible motive for the crime and the evidence derived from intelligence actions and interrogations that we have collected strengthen the line of investigation related to criminal groups with interests outside the Yaqui native people, who are interested in illegally benefiting from the collection of fees in the road section,” said prosecutor Claudia Indira Contreras.
According to the first inquiries, Tomás Rojo Valencia promoted a toll booth that would put order to the collection process, and that the benefit would really be for the yaqui native people.
Contreras said that during the investigations, five searches were carried out and nine vehicles were secured, one of which was apparently used to transport the victim when she was deprived of her liberty.
Rojo Valencia has been considered one of the spokesmen of the eight towns in resistance during the construction and subsequent operation of the Independencia aqueduct –during the administration of Guillermo Padrés in the state−, to bring water from the Yaqui River basin to the capital Hermosillo, from where it currently supplies more than 300 thousand people and which began operations in 2013.
The opposition to the construction of this aqueduct was because while the state government extracted water from the Yaqui River to supply the two most inhabited cities of Sonora, Hermosillo and Ciudad Obregón, it did not guarantee supply in the eight towns of the Yaqui tribe.
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