Mexico has asked the United States to extradite a key suspect in the killing of journalist Javier Valdez, the attorney general said Tuesday.
Damaso Lopez Serrano, known as "Mini Lic," is accused of ordering the 2017 killing of Valdez, an award-winning journalist and Agence France-Presse contributor who covered the narcotics trade.
Lopez Serrano, allegedly a former high-ranking member of the Sinaloa cartel, was arrested Friday in the U.S. state of Virginia on charges of trafficking fentanyl.
Mexico's prosecutor general, Alejandro Gertz, described Lopez Serrano as the "mastermind" behind Valdez's slaying.
"We have already prosecuted the rest of the perpetrators, and they are in jail," he said at a news conference.
Valdez was shot and killed in his car on May 15, 2017, in the Sinaloa state capital of Culiacan near the offices of his weekly newspaper, Riodoce.
Investigators believe Lopez Serrano ordered the hit because he was angry about information Valdez published about the Sinaloa cartel's internal power struggles.
Mexico has made several extradition requests for Lopez Serrano, who surrendered to U.S. authorities in July 2017 in a drug-trafficking case and cooperated in exchange for a reduced sentence. He was released from prison on parole in 2022.
Gertz said Mexico had asked "on countless occasions" for Lopez Serrano to be handed over, but Washington declined because he had become a "protected witness" and "was giving them a lot of information."
He voiced hope that with Lopez Serrano's latest arrest, "there are more than enough reasons" for the United States to finally grant Mexico's request.
