For a map, click here. For a map of Sonora state, click here. New information, including press statements from the Sonora attorney general's office.
By Chris Covert
A member of Javier Sicilia's Movement for Peace Justice and Dignity was found shot to death in Hermosillo, Sonora Monday afternoon, according to Mexican news accounts.
Nepomuceno Moreno Nuñez, 56, was shot as he was driving his Chevrolet pickup truck near the intersection of avenidas Reforma and Pesqueira in Centenario colony of Hermosillo near the Sonora state government palace where he had met with officials numerous times before to discuss the disappearance of his son in Cajume, Sonora.
Moreno Nuñez was hit by several 9mm rounds fired by individuals from another moving vehicle.
Moreno Nuñez's son, Jorge Mario was reportedly kidnapped last summer in Cajeme in Sonora while he was with several friends. Moreno Nunez maintained it was Sonoran state police agents who abducted and killed him.
The Procuradoria General del Estado (PGE) or attorney general of Sonora state, Jose Larrinaga Talamantes, released a statement Tuesday afternoon disputing elements of Moreno Nuñez's accusations against Sonora state security apparatus.
Larrinaga Talamantes said that Moreno Nuñez never filed a report on his missing son with any authority, and that Moreno Nuñez and his son were likely murdered by groups associated with organized crime.
Larrinaga Talamantes also said that Moreno Nuñez had previously served time in prison for smuggling heroin 1979, and had reported being kidnapped in 1997 by Ambrosio and Ramon Vazquez Villagrana, two individuals who had alleged links to drug trafficking and organized crime.
Moreno Nuñez was also arrested in 2005 for his role in a murder in the Los lagos colony in Hermosillo. He was later acquitted of that crime and for illegal possession of firearms.
Larrinaga Talamantes also noted another son of Moreno Nuñez, Gilberto Moreno Leon, has been arrested in the past for armed robbery, a crime for which he is still serving time.
In the abduction of Jorge Mario, reports are that a ransom was demanded and transmitted to Moreno Nuñez's by his unidentified daughter for MP $30,000 (USD $2138.73). The ransom was collected, but apparently never paid. The unknown number of friends with Jorge Mario were later also disappeared.
Moreno Nuñez had attended the Movement for Peace Justice and Dignity's October 14th meeting with Mexican president Felipe Calderon Hinojosa held at Castillo Chapultepec in Mexico City, where he denounced Calderon for his son's disappearance.
It transpired at the meeting that Moreno Nuñez had received death threats just before his trek to Mexico City.
Sicilia and a Universidad Nacional Automoma de Mexico professor and human rights activist , Emilio Alvarez Icaza told a Mexican publication Tuesday they would seek an audience with Sonora governor Guillermo Padres, saying the responsibility for the murder of Moreno Nuñez rests with the governor and the prosecutor (Larrinaga Talamantes).
Alvarez Icaza later characterized the PGE press conference as "shameful for criminalizing Moreno Nuñez." He also urged the Sonora PGE to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Moreno Nuñez's murder.
The Moreno Nuñez shooting is the second deadly shooting of a member of Sicilia's peace movement in less than two months.
Leiva Pedro Dominguez was shot to death October 8th in Santa Maria Ostula in Michoacan state. He did not attend to meeting in Mexico City.
Pedro Dominguez was involved in a civil conflict with landowners in La Placita. About 300,000 hectares of land had been transferred to Pedro Dominguez's indigent group in 2009 which had been previously granted other landowners.
Pedro Dominguez was a Nahuatl, one of several Mexican Indian tribes directly descended from the Aztecs. His group was also one of the few indigenous groups with the legal right to carry heavy firearms to defend and police their land, including AK-47 assault rifles.
To read the Rantburg.com report on the murder of Leiva Pedro Dominguez click here