Timber operator accused of ordering the killing
A Peruvian court on Monday evening convicted four men of murder-for-hire in the 2023 killing of Quinto Inuma Alvarado, the Associated Press reported.
Two defendants, Genix Saboya Saboya and Limber Ríos Ruiz, each received 35-year prison sentences, according to the AP. Timber operator Segundo Juan Villalobos Guevara, whom prosecutors accused of ordering the killing, was sentenced to 28 years and four months. A fourth defendant, Jerly Saboya Saboya, was convicted as an accomplice and sentenced to 15 years.
Inuma, a 50-year-old Kichwa leader, was shot and killed on Nov. 29, 2023, as he traveled by boat back to his community of Santa Rosillo de Yanayacu in Peru’s northern Amazonian region of San Martin, the AP reported. He had been returning from a national meeting of environmental and land defenders. A woman traveling with him was also shot and wounded.
The AP described the case as closely watched and seen as a test of accountability for violence against Indigenous and environmental defenders in the Amazon.