Lawyer says ruling could set precedent for other cases involving environmental defenders in Peru
A Peruvian court has convicted four men of murder-for-hire in the 2023 killing of Indigenous rainforest defender Quinto Inuma Alvarado, imposing prison sentences ranging from 15 to 35 years.
The Associated Press reported that the ruling came nearly 1,000 days after Inuma’s death and followed an eight-month trial. The case has been closely watched as a test of accountability for violence against Indigenous and environmental defenders in the Amazon.
Genix Saboya Saboya and Limber Ríos Ruiz were each sentenced to 35 years in prison. Segundo Juan Villalobos Guevara, a timber operator whom prosecutors accused of ordering the killing, received a sentence of 28 years and four months. Jerly Saboya Saboya, convicted as an accomplice, was sentenced to 15 years.
Inuma, a 50-year-old Kichwa leader, was shot and killed on November 29, 2023, while travelling by boat to his community, Santa Rosillo de Yanayacu, in Peru’s northern Amazonian region of San Martin. He was returning from a national meeting of environmental and land defenders. A woman travelling with him was also shot and wounded, AP News reported.
Prosecutors alleged that Inuma was targeted because of his efforts to stop illegal logging on his community’s land. They accused Villalobos, whom Inuma had denounced over illegal logging, of ordering the killing and the other defendants of planning and carrying out the attack.
Inuma had spent years raising concerns about illegal logging, drug trafficking and encroachment on his community’s territory. According to the Lima-based Legal Defense Institute, members of Santa Rosillo de Yanayacu filed 13 complaints with prosecutors concerning environmental crimes and drug trafficking between 2016 and 2023.
Peru’s Justice Ministry classified Inuma as being at high risk in 2021 and ordered police protection for him and his brother. Local authorities also granted him protection measures against illegal logging groups.
However, police later acknowledged they could not conduct preventive patrols in the remote territory because they lacked money for boats and faced geographical difficulties, according to documents cited by the Legal Defence Institute.
Cristina Gavancho, a lawyer with the Legal Defense Institute who has worked with Indigenous organizations and the victims’ families since the killing, described the ruling as an “exemplary sentence.” She said the decision could set a precedent for similar cases, noting that it was the first case in Peru involving the killing of an Indigenous defender to result in sentences of this severity.
Tom Younger, Peru program coordinator at the Forest Peoples Programme, described the sentences as a “decisive step towards justice” and said the outcome demonstrated that impunity for the killings of Indigenous defenders was not inevitable.
