Chiapas Prosecutor’s Office announces the arrest of the alleged murderer of priest Marcelo Pérez

The Chiapas Prosecutor’s Office announced this Tuesday the arrest of the alleged murderer of priest Marcelo Pérez. “An arrest warrant was issued against Edgar n“As a possible culprit in the murder of priest Marcelo Pérez,” reported the agency, which also announced that the case will be brought by the Attorney General’s Office (FGR) in the next few hours. The priest, a well-known human rights activist, was attacked after leaving a mass in San Cristóbal de las Casas on Sunday. The crime has shaken the state, which has been engulfed by violence for months.

Several years ago, Marcelo Perez told that he had received threats. For his work at Pentelho in Simojovel, Los Altos region at least a decade earlier, where he tried to mediate a local conflict over territory. “I have fought against injustice, we fight for peace, in Simojovel they put a price on my life: 150,000, 400,000, a million pesos, but we live under the protection of God, there is a lot of violence, but we continue Let’s build peace. We have to mediate to free the public officials, we will continue the fight for the poor,” he told journalist Isain Mandujano on August 2. It is a time bomb. If measures are not taken, it will be made a victim of organized crime, it will be enslaved,” he stressed at a march against violence last September.

Despite warnings, the priest was killed while driving his white van in San Cristóbal. According to local media, he was traveling alone and without an escort when the pilot was shot multiple times in the windshield, killing him. The first investigation by the Prosecutor’s Office indicates that he was attacked by two men riding a motorcycle. According to the Public Ministry, one of the two is the one who was arrested this Tuesday after “security camera tracking, field investigation and witnesses.”

This case has become a new example of violence spreading in the state. Chiapas, the country’s southern border, has been a region gripped by conflict between criminal groups for a year. The fighting over control of drug, weapons and people-trafficking routes has left more than 10,000 displaced people and thousands more victims of extortion, kidnapping and murder. Human rights organizations confirm that an “unrecognized armed conflict” is taking place in the area. This Monday, after the murder of Father Pérez, the Diocese of San Cristóbal wrote: “There is an urgent need to disarm, dismantle and eliminate the criminal groups present in the entity and their national and international affiliate networks.” Interest in dispossession and territorial control.”

In this context, religious people represented a voice in favor of peace. In recent times he had reduced his profile. He had lived for some years in San Cristóbal de las Casas, where he directed one of the most important parishes of the city, but he had left behind the years of greatest exposure. His transfer to the old Ciudad Real suggested comfort, at least temporary. However, the bullets hit him at that distance.