Another Suspect Arrested in Slaying of Baja Newsman

Mexican authorities have arrested a fugitive in connection with the ambush-style murder of popular Tijuana newspaperman Hector Felix (El Gato) Miranda, whose death in 1988 shocked the border city.

Baja California Judicial Police officers arrested 40-year-old Jose Emigdio Nevarez over the weekend, authorities said. Nevarez, a fugitive since 1990, is believed to have been driving one of two cars that blocked Felix’s path before he was killed by two shotgun blasts on his way to work, police said.

The arrest is the third in the almost four-year investigation of the April, 1988, slaying of the 47-year-old Felix, an editor and irreverent, widely read columnist for the weekly Zeta. Police believe he was killed in retaliation for his criticism of the city’s political and business elite.

Two former employees of the Caliente race track and former Mexican police officers have already been convicted. Antonio Vera Palestina, the former head of security for the track, was arrested in 1990 and is serving a 25-year prison sentence for his role in the slaying. The alleged triggerman, Victoriano Medina Moreno, was arrested 10 days after the shooting and sentenced to 27 years in prison.

Nevarez was being held on drug possession charges Wednesday while authorities determined whether they had enough evidence to charge him with murder.