[ad_1]
In the early morning of October 29 the body of Juana María Perea Plata, a recognized environmental leader from Chocó, was found on the seashore. This Sunday the Attorney General’s Office announced that the alleged material perpetrator of that murder was captured.
His name is Néstor Leonel Lozano Muriel, who was arrested in Nuquí (Chocó), where the murder of Perea was executed.
According to the investigation of the Prosecutor’s Office, the assassination allegedly had been ordered by heads of the ‘Clan del Golfo’, one of the largest criminal groups in Colombia.
The accusing body affirms that, apparently, this illegal group ordered his murder because the environmentalist had rebuked them and had asked them to leave the region in order to be able to reactivate ecotourism projects.
(Read: More than 250 leaders have been assassinated this year, according to Indepaz).
On the day of the events, according to the file, armed men arrived at Perea’s home in the town of Termales, and took her against her will in a boat that traveled the Pacific to the Nuquí River. At the height of the area known as Coquí, according to the investigation, the men shot him and threw his body into the water.
(Also read: Juana Perea, the woman who, fighting for Chocó, was murdered).
The community was the one that found the body of the environmental leader and who reported what happened to the authorities.
Néstor Leonel Lozano Muriel, the captured one, was known in the region as ‘Tigre’ or ‘Guachón’, and according to the Prosecutor’s Office, he was supposedly one of the heads of the urban structure of the ‘Clan del Golfo’.
The accusing body took him before a judge stating that it was he who shot Perea, for which he was charged with the crimes of aggravated homicide and conspiracy to commit a crime.
The Prosecutor’s Office also pointed out that another person who had been captured on October 31, but for other acts of conspiracy to commit a crime, will also be summoned to a hearing for the indictment of charges for the murder of the environmental leader, since they would also be responsible for the homicide.
Based on the evidence collected, It would be the person who piloted the boat in which Perea was kidnapped, murdered and later thrown into the river.
The Colombian-Spanish businesswoman and activist Juana María Perea Plata, 50, was murdered in the town of Nuquí, in the department of Chocó.
(Also: What is known about the murder of the environmental leader Juana Perea).
The Prosecutor’s Office affirms that, from the moment Perea was assassinated, prosecutors, investigators and experts were ordered to be transferred to the area in order to be able to locate those responsible for these events.
This is how, on November 1, the Internal Working Group for the Search, Identification and Surrender of Disappeared Persons (Grube) He exhumed the body of the victim, who had been buried in a vault in the Nuquí cemetery.
The Forensic Medicine commission carried out the autopsy and carried out forensic studies that made it possible to determine the cause of death, in order to have clues about what had happened.
On November 5, the authorities arrived at the boat that the illegal armed group had used to move Perea and, after the expert reports carried out, traces of human blood were found in that boat that would correspond to that of the victim.
(You may be interested: We will take away the assets of the corrupt and their front men: Prosecutor).
A day later, the Prosecutor’s Office and the Sijín of the Chocó Police conducted searches and raids on three homes in Nuquí, where electronic equipment and other evidence were seized.
This is how on November 7, that is, this Saturday, an operation was carried out joint between the Prosecutor’s Office, Police and the National Navy to capture Néstor Leonel Lozano.
The accusing body affirmed that the investigations continue in order to reach the other responsible parties linked to the murder of the environmental leader.
JUSTICE
