Jesús Lemus Barajas: 'The pen of Puente Grande' - Los Angeles Times

A couple of months ago, the journalist Jesús Lemus Barajas presented his new book "El Licenciado", in which he narrates in great detail and is backed by documents and statements from different characters, such as Genaro García Luna, SSP (Secretary of Public Security), during the six-year term of Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, (2006-2012), he became involved with the Sinaloa Cartel.

However, the purpose of this article is not to talk about that book. Jesús is 9, and all of them have strong and current topics in Mexico. Telling the story of this journalist from Michoacán is the objective, and it could well be a novel. And the scripts would be those that he wrote while he was imprisoned in the Puente Grande prison, Jalisco, precisely for investigating and finding uncomfortable facts for the president who launched the war against drugs in 2006 and who did so precisely in Michoacán.

“My worst fear when I was locked up in Puente Grande during those 1,100 days that I was imprisoned, was losing the ability to type. Of not being able to do my job every day", Jesús Lemus Barajas told me during one of several talks we have had about his experience in one of the maximum security federal prisons, in the state of Jalisco, along with the worst criminals in the world. country, and that marked his life forever.

What did you do to keep up with that practice?

“Well, notice that with a piece of cardboard that someone left lying around and a part of a Vic pen, I drew a board, I put the letters on it, just like machines have, and I typed with the help of the part and so I felt that every day I wrote chronicles, articles and reports. Tac tac tac, that noise that he made when simulating typing, bothered some of the prisoners in the other cells, who suddenly demanded: "Lemus, stop making noise." A noise that constantly reminded him over and over again that he was a journalist, and he inwardly told himself that he was making one of the greatest reports of his life inside that prison. And time and years later would prove him right.

This is one of the positive anecdotes that helped him stay mentally healthy in the midst of a confinement of more than 3 years, product of reprisals from the government of Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, for touching within his investigations, interests of his family and drug trafficking in Michoacán.

The years before prison

Jesús Lemus Barajas' career in journalism began more than 30 years ago in his home state of Michoacán. From a very young age, Jesus liked to cover the red note.

He was editor of the state section of the newspaper La Voz de Michoacán, one of the leading publications in the state, founded in 1948. He was in charge of 15 correspondents throughout the state, as well as another 3 in Mexico City , Monterrey and Guadalajara.

“I did my regular job. There was no maneuver for much investigative work. They were all destined to be practically spokesmen for power. To cover notes from mayors, governors, etc.", he says while talking about his experience in the traditional Michoacan newspaper.

In those years, land dispossession began to emerge, as well as a growing drug activity in Tierra Caliente, which involved mining.

In a state like Michoacán with different problems in its 4 cardinal points, for Lemus Barajas the omission of information was frustrating.

“There were always problems in The New Jerusalem, but I was never authorized to publish anything in that direction. That and other important information would not let me get it out. As an editor, in 2000, I was tired of seeing that they didn't publish what really reflected what Michoacan society was experiencing at that time." For that reason, Jesús decided to resign in February 2006.

“I returned from Morelia to La Piedad and went back to being a correspondent for La Jornada. Then I resign and decide to continue doing journalism, and I venture to make my own newspaper. I take out the little savings I had, I got rid of some things. I made an investment that at that time did not reach $250,000.00 pesos, but I was able to buy a machine to print the newspaper, I hired three reporters, a graphic designer and a printer. With that I began to make my newspaper. This is how “‘El Tiempo’, from La Piedad, Michoacán, was born,” he proudly recalls.

The illusion of making his own media outlet grow, carrying out special investigations, chronicles and articles critical of everything that was lived in the state, was a goal that Jesús Lemus pursued from his beginnings in journalism.

The emergence of “El Tiempo” in the Bajío region, and the number of readers that began to follow it, immediately positioned it as a leading publication, since there was only “AM” from León Guanajuato. Then the 24 pages of “El Tiempo” became attractive as a local and regional newspaper.

“It had all the sections from local, sports, politics, opinion. It begins to grow, I begin to have a lot of people, a lot of participation” says Jesús Lemus.

The arrival of Felipe Calderón to the presidency

In 2006, when Felipe Calderón Hinojosa became president of the republic, Jesús Lemus thought that there would be more support for small businessmen, and in general for the state, as it was Calderón's homeland.

“There was no official publicity. They did not open spaces for me like other media. I sought support from the state government and was denied. All the municipalities of Bajío and La Piedad read us, it was the most important medium. Still, I had no publicity," Lemus said.

“What I never thought of was compromising the editorial line. I saw that it was more profitable to be critical than to throw myself to the lines of power”. But at that moment Lemus could not see what would happen to him in the near future and precisely that harsh editorial line would be the trigger, for what was about to happen.

The war on drugs

After several cups of coffee, Jesús pauses, puts his cup aside, looks at me and says: “On December 6, when the war against drugs began in Michoacán, I began to be critical of the invasion by Felipe Calderon. It sent 12,000 elements to the state to begin the expansion throughout Michoacán. I gave a voice to the people who talked about extrajudicial executions, people who were detained and later found executed.”

His investigations led him to contact people involved in drug trafficking, with the “Familia Michoacana” at that time.

“Many people told me the inexplicable launch of the fight against drug trafficking, because 'La TUTA', Servando Martínez, and people from the Knights Templar, had a direct relationship with Luisa María Calderón. She was the sister of President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, and was known as 'La Cocoa'. Luisa María was also involved in politics. She was a Deputy for the National Action Party (PAN) from 1988 to 1991, and a Senator from 2000 to 2006. She then ran for governor of Michoacán, and was defeated by Fausto Vallejo, a PRI member. (During this candidacy he was accused of asking for support from Servando Gómez Martínez 'La Tuta', one of the leaders of the Knights Templar).

Lemus says that parallel to that, he continued covering the red note. And in his newspaper “El Tiempo”, he gave it a boost and took it back.

“I described the birth of the Michoacan Family, its break with the Zetas. From there I began to investigate the links of the FM with the Sinaloa cartel, and the emergence of the Valencia in Michoacán. And so I was for a while investigating the drug and political work.

The link between drug traffickers in his state and the relationship with politicians was something he was passionate about. He says that practically the first two years of Felipe Calderón's government, he dedicated himself to that and to documenting the relationship between Servando Martínez 'La Tuta', and Luisa María Calderón.

And since he was addicted to lurid and controversial topics, he comments that he also wrote and documented the pedophilia that arose within the PRI's state executive committee. It was headed by Jesús Reyna, who would later become governor.

As a result of touching such delicate topics, problems began to haunt him.

“They detained my delivery men, harassed them. At the end of April 2008, someone broke into the office and smashed the printing machine with a hammer. This and other late-night incidents made me file a complaint with Reporters Without Borders.”

“That is the background to the kidnapping on May 7, 2008. That day I went out to report as usual and Commander Ángel Ruiz Carrillo, from Guanajuato, who by the way is still active, is speaking to me. He tells me that he has information for me about some dead, and he makes an appointment with me in Santa Ana Pacueco, Guanajuato, municipality of Pénjamo. The appointment was at 11 a.m. We went to eat tacos and I told him: what's up commander, what's up. He told me come. He walks me over to a van and takes my notebook. Suddenly a group of 3 policemen grab me, hold me down and tell me with loud words that I was in trouble. They put a black jacket over my head and threw me into the trunk of a pickup truck. There my car was parked. They kept me for several hours on the roads of Bajío Guanajuatense. I was confused".

“For almost two hours of driving I was in the trunk. They took me to a house. The commander asked that they throw me into the river. Upon entering the house, they turned me against the wall. They tell me stay there bastard. They took off my jacket, they took off my clothes, they left me in my underwear and they sat me down on the ground. That's where I stayed."

Her guard was compassionate when she asked for water. He begged her to stay calm to avoid hitting him.

“They acted like organized crime. I was in a house that smelled of death, blood, urine, and excrement. It was a safe house for the Zetas. And I found out from a radio code”.

In view of the previous denunciations made by Jesús Lemus to Reporters Without Borders, its leader Balbina Flores, upon being notified of the disappearance of Lemus, issues an alert. They tell him that she does not appear. She corroborates the data and issues a statement notifying the disappearance of Jesús Lemus Barajas.

Flores spoke with witnesses who saw how a group of the Guanajuato ministerial police had taken him away. Flores asks the government to present the journalist alive.

That's how that day Lemus heard the noise of an approaching truck. He then recognized a familiar voice. The one about Commander Carrillo who said to the person who was watching him at that moment: “güey, where is the fucking fat man?”

And the guard answered: “Here it is, Commander.”

And Carrillo kept asking: “Did you hit his mother yet?”

The guard replied: “No, he is here waiting”.

Carrillo tells him: “Well, give it to me, I have to take the bastard. They are asking me in Guadalajara”.

Actually, the caretaker hands Lemus over to Commander Carrillo, the one who one day served as a source of information and now became a traitor and his executioner.

“Let's go dude. You saved yourself, son of a bitch," Carrillo told him in a mocking tone.

Torture

Listening to Lemus's vivid account while sharing coffee was thrilling. At times his voice broke when he remembered the torture and humiliation to which he was subjected, and that he could not understand the reason.

What happened when they took him out of the safe house in Guanajuato would mark him for life.

“They lifted me up between two. They took me out. My feet buckled between the earth and the furrows. I did not see, but I felt the earth. And someone came up to me and said: you saved yourself son of a bitch. And suddenly in my right ear I hear how they cut the cartridge and put a gun to my head and I feel the cold. At that moment it makes several detonations and they leave me deaf. I go deaf after those shots. I collapsed, fell to the ground without knowing if I was alive or dead. What happened next was that two people took me from that place to the facilities of the Guanajuato Attorney General's Office. I knew it because I heard the clicking of a machine. There they threw me to the ground, they beat me, they hit me in the face. Then they left me in a small room and they took off the bandage I was wearing and put another bandage on me. A person in a white coat and soft hands told me to be calm. That he was in the Attorney General's Office. He put some pants on me. I was falling asleep, when suddenly they took me out.

The torture continued. They gave Jesús Lemus electric shocks, they hit him on the soles of his feet with a mallet, they put a plastic bag over his head, they beat two of his ribs with a rifle, and while he was being beaten, they demanded he sign some sheets where they incriminated him with the group of Osiel Cárdenas Guillén, of the Gulf Cartel.

Because of the blows given, the pain, the fatigue, and the trauma of what he suffered without knowing why, he did not even have the strength to hold the pen with which they wanted to force him to sign their statement that involved him with the drug dealer .

72 hours passed like this. Then they asked him about Servando Martínez, 'La Tuta'. He only told them that he was a reporter, but the interrogations asking him for several names that he did not know, did not end. He also remembered that they asked him about Leonel Godoy, governor of Michoacán. They immediately demanded that he sign a document stating that he was part of the 'Michoacan Family'.

He was like this from May 7 until dawn on May 9, 2008, under constant torture in Guanajuato. That same May 9, someone arrived who blindfolded her, gave her clean clothes, and assured her that everything would be fine. He asked him to get dressed, brought him a bottle of water, and made him take an analgesic that momentarily took away the intense pain he had throughout his body as a result of the torture. That stranger who helped him stayed with him for about an hour. He checked her ribs, and saw the fracture. He informed him of his transfer to the public ministry.

When he arrived at another office, an agent from the public ministry told him that he was charged with organized crime and drug trafficking. They brought him a public defender for his first statement. He declared that he was a journalist in La Piedad, Michoacán and asked that his family, Reporters Without Borders, and Human Rights be notified. Lemus never acknowledged the charges against him.

From there they sent him to the “Puentecillas” prison. He was still in Guanajuato, on the same May 9th. Finally, that night a custodian allowed him to call his wife, who was crying inconsolably and devastated after finding out what was happening. It was not until May 10 that he was finally able to see his wife and daughter. They both saw him beaten, in pain, sad and confused by everything that was happening.

The transfer to Puente Grande

That Commander Ángel Ruiz Carrillo, who was his source of information for years, pointed him out as a member of a drug cartel in Michoacán, for the federal judge in charge of the Lemus case was reason enough to order his immediate transfer to a federal maximum security prison, given the high risk that a "member of the drug" represented.

Even according to Jesus' story, that judge even ordered a criminological study to determine his degree of dangerousness. The exam was so thorough, Lemus says, that the “specialist” only asked him two questions: his name and his age.

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“That was the criminological study that classified me as a highly dangerous individual, and a candidate for federal prison,” Lemus said.

The transfer from Guanajuato to Jalisco took place very early on May 27, with an operation carried out by the Federal Investigation Agency (AFI), and with the support of the Mexican Army. Lemus was guarded hand and foot handcuffs, 5 heavily armed agents in front, and another 5 behind him.

He spent three years and 5 days in that prison, with all kinds of delays in his judicial process, Lemus assured. This process took 6 months to start. And during that time, both physical and psychological torture was an everyday thing.

The degradation of his person, by keeping him naked, like the other prisoners, and beating him to exhaustion every night, made those hours, the darkest of his life, leave a taste of pain, blood, sadness and loneliness. And in the midst of so much suffering, came the hardest blow of all. “In August 2010 I received devastating news, my defense lawyers had been murdered right in the middle of the criminal process. I was left defenseless for more than 8 months, until I could count on a public defender,” he recalls.

And what followed was a titanic challenge for him. Overcoming pain, humiliation, loneliness, and torture, and above all, that taste and smell of blood every day after the blows he received.

His passion, therapy and his moral rescue

In a conversation full of drama, mixed emotions, and almost tears, it is inevitable to pause. Continuing, Jesus expresses how being a journalist and that passion that his profession has always aroused in him, was a light on his path, a hope to save his soul and soothe the physical pain of so many injuries caused by the brutal punishments he received during his stay in Puente Grande.

“He still asked me how I made it through the first few months. Later I had a more humane treatment. But the only way I sustained myself inside the prison was by always thinking that I was doing a story. Great informative work. That gave me a lot of hope. Knowing that my wife and daughter, who needed me, were waiting for me outside of jail. At night I sustained myself by doing mental exercises, writing an informative note every day. That's how I mentally escaped from jail."

And this is how he revives that typewriter he made with a piece of cardboard and a Vic pen refill. The one that, with annoying noises for others, reminded him of his essence as a journalist.

“Every day I typed on my imaginary machine until I got tired of writing an article, a report, a chronicle. He reviewed what the entry would be, the body of the note, and how he would finish it off. I always thought about the great informative work that I developed. That saved me, my taste and dedication to journalism. The only thing he had was his imagination."

To this he added those squares of toilet paper that he received every day, and which were used to document facts and anecdotes of those organized crime characters with whom he lived for several years and who left a very deep mark on his life , and valuable testimonies that would come to light a few years later, thanks to his wife who, when she visited him, collected them and transcribed them on a computer, turning them into very valuable files.

The traces of some prisoners from Puente Grande

During the 1,100 days that Lemus was in the Puente Grande prison, he saw up close the entrails of the other face of organized crime.

There he met the personalities of characters such as Rafael Caro Quintero, former leader of the Guadalajara cartel; Mario Aburto Martínez, alleged murderer of Luis Donaldo Colosio; Alfredo Beltrán Leyva, 'El Mochomo'; Daniel Arizmendi López, 'El Mochaorejas'; Juan Sánchez Limón, lieutenant of 'El Lazca'; Daniel Aguilar Treviño, murderer of José Francisco Ruiz Masseiu; José Humberto Rodríguez Bañuelos, 'La Rana', alleged murderer of Cardinal Juan Jesús Posadas Ocampo; and Noe Hernández, 'El Gato', who was an assistant to Joaquín 'El Chapo', Guzmán; Carlos Rosales, founder of the Michoacan Family; Armando Amezcua, head of the Colima cartel, among many other criminals.

“I never envisioned the fact that being in prison, the criminal world would be so important in my working life. So much so that I never imagined having first-hand information on how these drug cartels are organized, from their own voice,” says Lemus.

Lemus acknowledges that, among the prisoners, no matter how criminal they were, there were equal conditions, because they were all practically “naked”, because in there, they had nothing. But between them there was respect, and a certain camaraderie, inevitable given the amount of time shared.

He had the opportunity to meet them all, without justifying them he could see that face that they don't give to the world. The human part that surfaced in them while in prison, and that Lemus analyzed in silence and mentally kept for that "giant report that he prepared from the confinement."

Lemus tells me about several, such as Rafael Caro Quintero; Humberto Rodríguez 'The Frog'; Armando Contreras Amezcua, head of the Colima cartel, and Carlos Rosales, founder of the “Michoacan Family”; Mario Aburto, (presumed murderer of Luis Donaldo Colosio), as well as Alfredo Beltrán Leyva, 'El Mochomo'.

“I don't think we reached the point of friendship, it was just empathy. I tried to understand them, and they me. In the case of Carlos Rosales, when he found out that I was accused of being the boss of 'La Tuta', he laughed, and told me that I didn't have that profile, and since he was the founder of that Michoacán cartel, he knew that I didn't He was involved because he didn't even know me."

Rafael Caro Quintero

When mentioning the former head of the Guadalajara cartel, Lemus said that Caro Quintero did not talk about his crimes or drug trafficking.

“Rafael was an attentive man. He commanded authority and respect. He was affable and easy to deal with. He didn't lie to me, he wasn't on drugs, he didn't attack anyone. That's why it was incredible for me to believe him responsible for so many crimes that were attributed to him. So there was a certain degree of empathy. There was never a heavy deal between us. He had a great sense of humor. It was very anecdotal. He recounted his youth adventures and how in love he was with many women. He was a one-turn man. That was what created empathy between us”, he comments.

And continue...

“With other prisoners I felt aberration because they spoke of being dismembered, executed, the tons of drugs they moved. I could not tolerate that. Maybe for them who didn't know the difference between good and evil, it was natural. Rafael the most that counted was the relationship at dinner with his friends, what they drank and what they ate. Nothing about his activities as a narco. That caught my attention a lot."

One day, sitting on a bench in the playground, he told her: “This is the first time I've talked to a journalist. I don't like journalists. I never talk to them. And he denied having spoken with Julio Scherer. He recounted that the only time was in the northern prison in Mexico City, and it was from the patio door when Scherer yelled at him: Rafael, while he was walking around exercising. And Caro Quintero replied: 'what do you want?' I'm Julio Scherer, I want an interview, he replied. And he told her: 'I'm not giving you anything'. And he assured that it was the only conversation ”.

Curiously, I asked him if, due to so much coexistence and quiet talks, he could even feel affection for some.

“I was watching them from the human side. I am not a sociologist or a psychologist, I am a journalist and I observed their behavior, their way of thinking, their conception of life. Narcos are human beings after all, and many, without trying to excuse them, are not the monsters that the media portrays. I didn't want to talk about crimes. I wanted to know what they feel, what they think and what their desires are. That's what I basically focused on."

Mario Aburto

During the interview it was inevitable to ask him about Mario Aburto. To date no journalist has succeeded in interviewing him.

“When I met him, the emotional impact was great. From my position as a reporter, I was in front of one of the protagonists of the most important historical event of the last century in Mexico, and being there, other things being equal, had a great impact on me, it shook me. I asked him many times what everyone wanted to ask him, and I always had an evasive answer about whether he had killed the presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio, in that rally in Lomas Taurinas in March 1994, in Tijuana. Being with him put me in another grade as a reporter. I could feel it as such. So far no journalist has been with him. And Mario to date does not even know what happened.

And she tells me her conclusions about the time she was around him.

“I've always believed he didn't kill him. I didn't even have motivation. He was shy and reserved. He didn't talk to anyone. He was always isolated from the group and you could see his fear of interacting with other inmates”.

José Humberto Rodríguez Bañuelos 'The Frog'

When asked about his impressions of the person accused of murdering Cardinal Juan Jesús Posadas Ocampo in May 1993 at the Guadalajara International Airport, Lemus told me his conclusions.

“Notice that Humberto Rodríguez was upright and honest. Talking with him amused me, he told jokes. I was always happy. He said gibberish, he said mothers, but all the time he saw his own criminal life as something he had to do in life. He was convinced that he was the best assassin in Mexico, which made him look ridiculous for thinking like that. In addition, he told stories without limit. He went from the family level, to the cartels, to when he was a Sinaloa police officer, when he worked for the Arellano Félix family, without taking into account that he was speaking with a journalist. It gave me a degree of confidence."

He said that the assassination of Posadas Ocampo was commissioned by the federal government. He spoke of the then Attorney General of the Republic, Jorge Carpizo McGregor, who called Posadas Ocampo's attention because he knew about arms trafficking from Tijuana to Chiapas. But they couldn't stop him because of his relationship with the Vatican. And it was through Rodolfo León Aragón 'El Chino', who was at that time Chief of the Federal Judicial Police, (1993), that Humberto Rodríguez 'La Rana' was entrusted with the execution. 'La Rana' revealed that he received instructions to kill Cardinal Posadas Ocampo. He was also trusted people of Carpizo when he was Secretary of the Interior. And he said that León Aragón was also in charge of summoning the Arellano Félix family and Joaquín, 'El Chapo' Guzmán, to establish a peace truce. “The federal government squared everything. They knew that the cardinal would arrive at that moment and they ordered his execution in that place. And at the same time they summoned the others to mediate a dialogue between them, and from there the version of the crossfire between those hitmen”.

Drug education

Although it may seem incredible, something that caught my attention in the story of Jesús Lemus was the great interest that most of the criminals had in his education. They did not want to be ignorant. And since a large part of them had not even completed primary school, they took great care in the classes they received to achieve that certificate. In this, Lemus had a primary role. He became the tutor of many. The most interested was Rafael Caro Quintero. During the time that Lemus was there, Quintero passed the elementary grades one by one. He even tells an anecdote about it:

“One morning Rafael made such a racket that for the moment I thought he had achieved his freedom. But no, he told me that he had already passed the third year of primary school, he thanked me for the help received and asked me to continue supporting him every afternoon to pass primary school. He even told other prisoners that when he was studying, no one should bother us. I didn't want other interns to ask me questions before exams."

The love letters

“Who says that love only touches good souls? When I was imprisoned I met the most heartless men, those who could rationally think that they did not have a drop of love in their souls. But paradoxically I saw many of them in love to the marrow”, says Lemus.

One of the activities that took him away from loneliness, and that taste of blood and sadness, were those times when he rented himself out as “cupid”. This almost always happened on "Valentine's Day." Knowing that there was a "letter" intern, as they said, many came to ask for his help to write love letters. And he, with the sensitivity of his pen, says that he wrote the most feverish letters that could come out of the heart of a prisoner, for others to sign.

These special commissions had their price. Some paid with half an orange, others with two tortillas, a piece of bread, or chocolate. When he was doing better, he received a handful of leaves or a pen. Those last items were a treasure for someone like him. Jesús says that it also filled him with satisfaction to see the smiles of those prisoners consumed by the shadows of their cells, when reading the texts he wrote with the emotion of a lover.

His most regular clients were: Alfredo Beltrán Leyva; Rafael Caro Quintero; Daniel Arizmendi, 'El Mochaorejas'; Sergio Enrique Villarreal, 'The Great'; Carlos Rosales; Noe Hernandez, 'The Cat'; and Humberto Rodríguez Banuelos. They maintained their love affairs through the mail.

“Rafael Caro liked to intersperse my sentences with his ideas. He wanted the writings to carry the very essence of him. Don Rafa's touch, he said every time he interrupted the newsroom”.

He also talked about the letters from Daniel Arizmendi, 'El Mochaorejas'.

“Arizmendi was very sensual. He was undone in a detailed description of the recipient. She talked about her body, her hair, her nails, her lips. He liked that he exposed the sexual desire that she inspired in him. It hurt him not to have a body to caress on those cold nights in Puente Grande”.

And about the head of the Beltrán Leyva hitmen, Sergio Enrique Villarreal, 'El Grande', Lemus says:

“The most painful thing for him was not having that woman caressing his back at night. She was the one with whom he walked in the park (fictitious, by the way), and who went with her feet clad in red heels that he himself bought for her.

Of Carlos Rosales, head of the Michoacán Family, recounted:

“Carlos was very practical. He asked me to start with a greeting to his wife and her family. Then he moved on to things of the heart. Sometimes he dictated his own feelings to me and nuanced it with phrases from one of his favorite songs, like those he hummed from time to time. Melina by Camilo Sesto, or El Triste by José José”.

And about Humberto Rodríguez, ‘La Rana’, remember:

“He liked to talk about when he lived in Morelia. From when he walked hand in hand with his wife through the portals of the Michoacan capital. The pain of knowing that he would never get out of prison comforted him with the hope of being with her in the other world. He said that only love made him feel more human.

It was stories like these, and many more that he lived in those 3 years and 5 days locked up in Puente Grande, which he weaved together with great detail in those days and nights of agony, where he said he only had “imagination”. and the passion that sustained him, his love for journalism and that of his wife and daughter, who he knew were looking forward to seeing him again.

And while that was happening, stories like the ones narrated and others, written on squares of paper that his wife and daughter secretly took out during their visits to the prison, came to life when he was released from prison. And in two books with the name "Los Malditos", as he says the inmates were stigmatized in that place, Jesús Lemus Barajas narrates what he lived in confinement. The brutal reality, the worst humiliations done to a human being, the repression, the treatment like animals that Jesus received in his own flesh when they were pointed out as the worst in society.

“I think these two books are my greatest journalistic work because I present the vision of drug trafficking beyond whether or not it is responsible for the violence in Mexico. I raise that by overcoming a situation of poverty that pushes many to the drug trade to alleviate their situation. In addition, clearly exposing the prison system in the country as repressive and exterminating is essential. Currently these books are taken as a subject in criminology schools. Before, very little was said about those who are deprived of their liberty. I try to make a journalism closer to information sources, so that they know stories attached to human feelings”.

For Jesús Lemus Barajas, his stay as an intern at the Federal Center for Social Readaptation number 2 of the West in Puente Grande, Jalisco, changed his life forever. Even outside of that prison, (which closed its doors in October of last year), it continues to cost him his freedom. He doesn't have a normal life. He lives everywhere. He defines himself as a “displaced journalist”. He knows what it's like to be in "hell." And his life is in danger, because the threats from powerful people who are still in the government continue.