After cartel kidnapping, Mexican journalist fled to U.S.

19 Feb 18 | Global Journalist, Media Freedom, Mexico, News and features, United States

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]This article is part of Index on Censorship partner Global Journalist’s Project Exile series, which has published interviews with exiled journalists from around the world.[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]

Alejandro Hernandez Pacheco

Alejandro Hernandez Pacheco

The men from the Sinaloa cartel had made a mistake, and now they were looking to use it to their advantage.

It was July 2010, and Mexican television cameraman Alejandro Hernandez Pacheco and a colleague had been covering a riot at a prison in the town of Gómez Palacio in Durango state in northwestern Mexico. As they drove away from the prison, their car was stopped by Sinaloa gunmen, who mistook the two journalists for members of the rival Zetas cartel.

At the time, the Sinaloa cartel, led by the infamous drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, were in the midst of a bloody battle for trafficking routes in northern Mexico. In 2010 alone, more than 15,000 people would die in Mexico’s drug wars. In Hernandez’s nearby home city of Torréon, where he worked for a local Televisa station, there were 990 homicides in 2011, up from 62 five years earlier, according to Reuters.

The Sinaloa men forced Hernandez and a colleague out of the car and into the trunk.

“They told us they were going to kill us because they thought we worked for the other cartel,” says Hernandez, in an interview with Global Journalist. “We told them we worked for Televisa and showed them our phones, equipment, microphones and everything. And they saw we were telling the truth.”

That didn’t mean they were safe. For days, Hernandez and two other kidnapped journalists were shuttled from a series of Sinaloa safehouses, where they were beaten and threatened with death. Héctor Gordoa, a Mexico City-based Televisa reporter who had been working with Hernandez, was released on the condition that he file a report detailing collaboration between government officials and Sinaloa cartel’s rivals, the Zetas. Hernandez and fellow journalist Javier Canales were kept by the cartel as hostages.

When Televisa refused to air Gordoa’s report, some feared Hernandez and Canales would be killed. Instead, they were released. According to Gordoa, the cartel had determined that killing journalists would do them more harm than good.

As for Hernandez, he and his family fled to the U.S., where was granted asylum in 2011. Now working as a cameraman in Colorado, he spoke with Global Journalist’s Astrig Agopian through a translator about his kidnapping and flight. Below, an edited version of their interview:

Global Journalist: How did the cartels affect you as a journalist before you were kidnapped?

Hernandez: It was good and normal before the war between the narcos started about ten years ago. Torréon was a small town in a peaceful region. But in 2007 the violence arrived there. There were a lot of narcos, but there was no problem because the people did not mess with them and they did not mess with the people. But another cartel, the Zetas, arrived from the northeast of the country.

Then the war started between them and El Chapo’s band, the Sinaloa cartel. There started being murders, abductions, kidnappings…and that is when the fear started spreading in the population. There were killings everyday. Murders with a lot of sadism. It was not like just a bullet in the head, people were beheaded or they would take their eyes out.

GJ: How did the media you worked for cover this?

Hernandez: At the beginning, everything was okay. We would cover the assassinations and not include the names of the team who worked on the story to protect them. We started to get used to the reign of the narcos, the war, all the dead.

The problems started in 2009 when a colleague from a newspaper, Eliseo Barron, was kidnapped and killed. He was a police reporter for a newspaper in Torréon. We knew the narcos did it, but we didn’t know which group.

There were killings outside of television stations and newspapers. They used “mantas,” which are pieces of tissue where it was written that what happened to Eliseo will happen to others too if they don’t keep silent. So then many journalists started being scared.

GJ: What story were you working on when you were kidnapped?

Hernandez: A journalist came from Mexico City who worked for the [national] program “Punto de Partida,” or “Starting Point.” The host of the program sent people to Torréon to cover the narcos. The reporter [Héctor Gordoa] arrived, but without a cameraman because he missed the flight. He came to ask for help from the Televisa station where I worked. They asked me to go with him.

Our intention was to interview the mayors of the three cities: Lergo, Durango, Gomez Palacio, Durango and Torréon. The mayor of Gomez Palacio took a long time to receive us. When we left him, we were told that there was a riot in the CEFERESO [a federal prison].

We decided to go to the jail and do interviews. There were many relatives of the prisoners there, because there were reports of shots fired inside and they were crying and there was a lot of security. But with all the army and the security we felt safe.

When we [Hernandez and Gordoa] left the area, it was like 3 p.m. and two miles ahead, at a traffic light, we were intercepted by a car and some guys got out with guns and got in our car. They put me and my colleague in the trunk.

GJ: What happened next?

Hernandez: They told us they were going to kill us because they thought we worked for the other cartel [the Zetas]. We told them we worked for Televisa and showed them our phones, equipment, microphones and everything. And they saw we were telling the truth.

They still said they would kill us. They covered our eyes with cloth and tied our hands and feet. Then they put us in a truck and made some telephone calls. I don’t know if they were calling El Chapo or whoever.

On the Monday [July 26, 2010] when they took us, they called Televisa and told them that they had us and they would kill us if the network continued to publish stories about them. They said they wanted us to do a video for YouTube in which we would incriminate the Zetas with the [state] government of Coahuila.

We did a 15-minute video on Tuesday and Televisa broadcast it late at night..At this point, nobody knew we were hostages besides my family, the other’s families and Televisa.

GJ: So they used you to try to blackmail Televisa into broadcasting reports that would hurt a rival cartel?

Hernandez: On Wednesday, they wanted us to record another report [implicating the Zetas with additional government officials]. But Televisa refused, saying: ‘We won’t be responsible if something happens to them, because we [the network] cannot continue to be hostages of the narcos.’

The police were supposedly looking for us. We expected them to rescue us. They kept us in a room 4 meters by 4 meters. There were us three journalists, three kidnapped policeman, and a taxi driver. We were seven total. It was the summer and it was so hot. They gave us some water but nothing to eat. If you wanted to sleep or sit you had to ask for permission. We could not go to a bathroom, we had a paint bottle and that’s it.

They psychologically tortured us because they were saying they would kill us. If [narcos] kill you during the day, they will leave your body outside. But if not, they hide your body.

What I really hoped, what I prayed for was that if they killed me, they would leave my body in sight so that people would find me and recognize me and that way I would not be a ‘desaparecido.’ That is so much worse for the families, worse than them knowing that you are dead.

We were very tired but we could not sleep at night because we were afraid they would take us and kill us.

GJ: How were you released?

Hernandez: The journalist from Mexico City [Héctor Gordoa] was released on Thursday [July 29, 2010]. They took us [Canales and Hernandez] to another safehouse. We were fragile like drunk people because we did not have food or enough water for days. We had no energy. They put us in a dark, abandoned room like a bathroom. It was dark, but I remember that there were cockroaches and animals there.

It was the middle of the night and we just wanted them to kill us because we were so tired of all the uncertainty. One moment they wanted to kill us, then they didn’t, then they did again.

We started screaming because there were neighbors. We shouted: “We want water! We want water!”

We tried to escape, tried to open the door. Someone arrived with a truck, and they started beating us. All the things they had not done the days before, they did that night. They bound us with wire by our hands and feet.

After the beating, they treated us very well. They gave us water and we were taken to yet another safehouse on Friday night. But there was blood all over the room where we were taken. There was a scalp. We thought that is where they tortured and killed people.

There was a person taking care of us, who even gave us water…a gallon of water for each of us. I told myself: ‘I want to escape, I’m not going to let them just kill me.”

But I didn’t succeed. I was at peace though because at least I tried. That was the moment when I could finally sleep. I do not know how many hours.

At that time, the government and El Chapo’s cartel must have been in talks [to arrange our release]. Next, they took us back to the safehouse where we had been earlier. The federal police were already there. It seemed they were there to pretend it was a rescue – I don’t know if the narcos were late bringing us back or the police came early. [When we were handed over] the police said: “Oh that’s you guys! Where were you detained? How are you?”

It was like a movie. We were free.

The police took us to do a press conference in Mexico City. They said they had rescued us and that there had been no shooting, and that the narcos did not do anything to us and that they released us because [the government] asked them to.

GJ: How did you decide to go to the U.S.?

Hernandez: They released me [Saturday July 31, 2010] and the police took me to Mexico City. I spent about 20 days total in Mexico City with my family.

The police caught some suspects. It was actually the ones who held us as prisoners. We went and identified them. But you know for drug traffickers, the guys with the guns are just soldiers. The boss turned them over.

During that time, I made calls to El Paso, Texas where I have family. They put me in touch with a great lawyer, who saved my life. I talked with my wife and lawyer and we decided not go back to Torréon. I took a truck, then a bus, then I walked.

I crossed the border on Aug. 22 to Texas with a tourist visa and then started the process to get political asylum. On Aug. 23, [the Sinaloa cartel] started looking for me. On Aug. 24, my wife crossed with our small children. We only took a small bag with clothes for the children and a folder with all the proof of what happened to me, pictures and articles in the newspapers. I asked for asylum in Houston.

GJ: How are things for you now?

Hernandez: Now I am a U.S. resident. I would love to be able to go back [to Torréon] but I cannot. I am angry at everyone, the police and the narcos, because my sons had to leave our home.

My children gave me a lot of courage. It was hard to arrive in another culture. My sons now go to school and speak English. When I arrived I worked at a local Spanish TV station in El Paso until 2015. Then I was offered a job in Colorado. Now I live there with my family and work as a cameraman. I am very grateful to this country because I arrived with a small suitcase and now we have a house, I have opportunity here.

With translation by Maria F. Callejon[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_video link=”https://youtu.be/tOxGaGKy6fo”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]Index on Censorship partner Global Journalist is a website that features global press freedom and international news stories as well as a weekly radio program that airs on KBIA, mid-Missouri’s NPR affiliate, and partner stations in six other states. The website and radio show are produced jointly by professional staff and student journalists at the University of Missouri’s School of Journalism, the oldest school of journalism in the United States. [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Don’t lose your voice. Stay informed.” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_separator color=”black”][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]Index on Censorship is a nonprofit that campaigns for and defends free expression worldwide. We publish work by censored writers and artists, promote debate, and monitor threats to free speech. We believe that everyone should be free to express themselves without fear of harm or persecution – no matter what their views.

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Argentine journalist fled after prosecutor’s death

22 Jan 18 | Argentina, Global Journalist, Media Freedom, media freedom featured, News and features

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner][vc_column_text]This article is part of Index on Censorship partner Global Journalist’s Project Exile series, which has published 52 interviews with exiled journalists from 31 different countries.[/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”97517″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” alignment=”center”][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_column_text]It was a story that shook Argentine politics. For the journalist who broke the news, it upended his life.

On January 18, 2015,  Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman was found dead of a gunshot wound in his apartment just days after releasing a 289-page report accusing then president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner and her foreign minister of covering up Iran’s involvement in the 1994 bombing of Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina (AMIA), a Jewish community center. The explosion killed 85 people and was the deadliest terrorist attack in the country’s history.

The journalist who broke the story of Nisman’s death on Twitter was Damian Pachter, a young Argentine-Israeli reporter for the English-language Buenos Aires Herald.

“Prosecutor Alberto Nisman was found in the bathroom of his house at Puerto Madero. He was not breathing. The doctors are there,” Pachter wrote.

That tweet set off a chain of events that led both to an investigation of Kirchner and to Pachter fleeing Argentina for Israel.

Kirchner’s government, which had been seeking to undermine Nisman’s allegations, immediately labeled his death a suicide, as Nisman’s body had been discovered with a handgun nearby. “What led a person to make the terrible decision to take his own life?” she wrote on Facebook, soon afterwards.

Nisman’s death and Kirchner’s move to call it a suicide triggered a massive protest in Buenos Aires. The Argentine government was later forced back away from its claims that Nisman had committed suicide, and Kirchner’s Front for Victory narrowly lost presidential elections later that year. An investigation into Nisman’s death concluded earlier this year that it was a homicide.

Pachter, who had been working on a freelance story for an Israeli newspaper about Nisman’s investigation of the bombing and the government’s efforts cover up Iran’s role, was soon targeted by the government.

Six days after Nisman’s body was found, he fled to Israel with nothing but a backpack.

Pachter, 33, now works as a producer for Israel’s i24 News and as a host for Ñews24 in Tel Aviv. As for Kirchner, she has consistently denied any role in Nisman’s death or covering up Iran’s role in the AMIA bombing. In October, she won election to the Argentine senate, a position that gives her legal immunity from prosecutor’s efforts to charge her with treason and covering up the government’s role in Nisman’s death.

Pachter spoke with Global Journalist’s Maria F. Callejon about the strange days after Nisman’s death and his flight from Argentina. Below, an edited version of their conversation, translated from Spanish:

Global Journalist: Tell us about the night of Nisman’s death.

Pachter: I was in the living room when I received the news of Nisman’s death from a source at approximately 11 p.m. For 35 minutes I talked to my source to try to verify it. At 11:35 p.m. I sent the first tweet: “I have been informed of an incident at Prosecutor Nisman’s house.”

I already knew what had happened, but I took the time to talk to my source, to check there were no mistakes and to get as much detail as I could. At 12:08 a.m. I tweeted: “Prosecutor Alberto Nisman was found in his bathroom at his house in Puerto Madero. He wasn’t breathing. The doctors are there.”
[/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”97522″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”https://twitter.com/damianpachter/status/557011746855321600″][vc_column_text]GJ: What were your first thoughts after receiving the information?

Pachter: I was very robotic. Immediately, I started fact-checking. Pretty much like a machine: at first, it was shocking, but I was the one who got it and I had to make sure that everything was true to then publish it. That was it. I thought I was going to be fired for tweeting first. But I told myself that if I was going to be fired for something, it might as well be this, but I had to publish it.

GJ: Did you think the government would try to cover up the incident?

Pachter: I can’t say that I didn’t, but I didn’t imagine anything precise. Knowing the government and how they treated journalists critical of them, I thought that they would create a media campaign against me. I had delivered news that affected their power, I had to have the [courage] to endure what came after. It’s part of the job. I got into journalism for this kind of thing. There are ups and downs, but you have to do your job and that is to publish what they want to hide. The investigation of Nisman’s death took two years and a new government. The previous government almost shut it down. A couple months ago, the police determined it was a homicide. Think about what would’ve happened if nobody had said anything.

GJ: What happened the day after you reported this?

Pachter: We were all in shock, nobody could believe what was happening. There was an atmosphere of fear. I interpreted that as the government making a show of their power. They had ordered the killing of the prosecutor that had accused them, and I think they didn’t consider the consequences. They didn’t think that this would be important nor that it would have the popular response it had.

GJ: How was the rest of the week?

Pachter: People were calling me, I swear, they wouldn’t stop calling from all over the world. We started doing some appearances on some big networks like CNN. In the meantime, I tried to do my job as normally as I could, but the emotion was so overwhelming, that didn’t work. I had too much adrenaline. In the days afterwards, a source of mine started messaging me to come visit. That source lived out of the city, so I didn’t pay too much attention. In the meantime, I was preparing to face further attacks from the government. I knew I was going to be targeted for being Israeli and Jewish. So I thought I would go on TV and set the record straight. I knew that they would attack me for that. I was used to the government. Any journalists that confronted them would suffer the consequences.

GJ: Were you attacked for being Jewish?

Pachter: They will do anything to discredit you. Instead of saying that I was a journalist doing my job, they said that I was working for the Israeli intelligence services, that I was an undercover agent. The government took pictures from my Facebook account of me in the Israeli army, something that I’d already talked about publicly. They marked my face with a yellow circle and sent it to pro-government groups. While this was happening, my source kept insisting that I visit. On Thursday [five days after Nisman’s body was discovered], I got an email from a colleague. The link in the mail showed that Télam, Argentina’s government news agency, had published some information about me. My name was misspelled, my workplace was incorrect and they had changed my tweets [about Nisman’s death]. This disturbed me and I thought something was going on. I sent that information to my source, who again said I should come visit. That’s when it hit me, after four days. My source was saying too that something was going on.

GJ: What did you do then?

Pachter: I left the newsroom and left my car parked there. I took a taxi back to my apartment. There, I packed a backpack with clothes for three days. That was my plan, to go and hide for three days until it all calmed down. For whatever reason, I grabbed my Israeli passport and my identity card. Then I took a bus out of town to meet with my source. While I was waiting at the cafe of a gas station, I realized a man had come into the cafe and there was something strange about him, his body language and his presence. I sat still in my seat. Time passed and this man was still there, not asking for anything to drink or eat. My source called me and told me to stay wait for him. Twenty minutes later, he was there. He came in through the back door, so he saw the man sitting behind me. My source approached me and said: “Don’t turn around. You have an intelligence officer behind you. Look at my camera and smile.” We pretended as if he were taking my picture, but he really took one of the man. When he realized what we were doing, he left. Right then I knew I had nothing else to do in the country. I was leaving. I was sure they were going to kill me, taking into account what happened to Nisman.

GJ: How did you plan your trip?

Pachter: At the cafe I did what I could to book a flight as soon as possible. The soonest one was with Argentina Airlines, from Buenos Aires to Montevideo to Madrid to Tel Aviv. I went straight to the airport to catch my flight on Saturday [six days after Nisman’s body was found]. I met my mom and said goodbye. I told her what was happening and she understood what was at stake. I also met with two colleagues of mine who were there to document it all. And then I left. During my flight, the Pink House [Argentina’s presidential residence and office] published on its official Twitter account the details of my flight. There it was clearly, just what I had thought: this was official persecution.

GJ: How did you feel when you got to Israel?

Pachter: Some friends and journalists from international media and local media met me there. Once I was there, it felt like a weight off my back. Once we landed, I felt safe.

GJ: Since you went into exile, Kirchner’s government lost the election and she was replaced by opposition candidate Mauricio Macri. Have you considered going back?

Pachter: For now, I don’t want to go back, as much as people tell me everything is fine. I have many feelings that discourage me from going. I was expelled, in a way, from Argentina. I was forced to go into exile because of my job.

GJ: Was it worth it?

Pachter: Yes, of course. I would do it a thousand times.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_video link=”https://youtu.be/tOxGaGKy6fo”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]Index on Censorship partner Global Journalist is a website that features global press freedom and international news stories as well as a weekly radio program that airs on KBIA, mid-Missouri’s NPR affiliate, and partner stations in six other states. The website and radio show are produced jointly by professional staff and student journalists at the University of Missouri’s School of Journalism, the oldest school of journalism in the United States. [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]