Mexican writer Alfredo Jalife. Photo: Google

By KELIN DILLON

On Tuesday, Dec. 5, Mexican writer Alfredo Jalife was detained by the Attorney General’s Office of Mexico City (FGJ-CDMX) on allegations of committing defamation against Mexico’s former Secretary of the Economy Tatiana Clouthier.

The detention was made at the behest of the Attorney General’s Office of the State of Nuevo León, where Clouthier first filed the charges back in December 2022.

According to Clouthier’s petition, Jalife publicly defamed the former Secretary of the Economy – and current member of the team of National Regeneration Movement (Morena) presidential candidate Claudia Sheinbaum – by accusing her of stealing lithium from Mexico in a series of YouTube videos.

“In December 2022, I sued Alfredo Jalife in the state of #NuevoLeón for defamation, slander and whatever resulted. Mr. Jalife lied, claiming that I stole the Lithium from Mexico and that I handed over the Mexican state to the Americans,” Clouthier wrote on social media platform X.

“Justice and authorities act at their own pace and as a citizen I have the right to defend the good name that I have built over the years,” continued Clouthier. “I have never harmed, nor will I harm, the Mexican state. I have made decisions in accordance with the law.”

Jalife was transferred to Monterrey, Nuevo León following the arrest, where a Mexican control judge prohibited Jalife from approaching Clouthier in her place of residence and placed a 60-day window of investigation into the crime.

The writer was subsequently released from detention after the hearing, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) revealed during his daily morning press conference on Thursday, Dec. 7.

AMLO went on to defend Jalife against the allegations, citing the writer’s right to freedom of expression.

“It also has to do with a constitutional right, with the sixth and seventh article, the freedom of ideas,” said AMLO at the time “And that also concerns us, if not directly, it is not up to us to solve it, we do have to guarantee the free expression of ideas, that there is no censorship.”

“I love both of them, who are in this matter, I love Tatiana very much and Alfredo too,” concluded the federal executive. “And I hope the parties understand me, but we have to be respectful of freedoms.”