Gabriel Labrador Aragón

Born in El Salvador in 1983, Gabriel Labrador Aragón has been a journalist for the last 13 years. He worked for six years at La Prensa Grafica, one of two leading printed newspapers in the country, and since 2011 has been a staff writer for El Faro, a native-online newspaper based in San Salvador that was acknowledged recently with one of the most prestigious awards among Latin-America and Spain, the Gabriel García Márquez Excellence Award. In 2013, Labrador investigated a former president of El Salvador, Antonio Saca, who ruled the country between 2004 and 2009. The result of that investigation was finally published in two pieces: one, revealed the exceptional incomes of former president Saca’s companies, while he was in office, and the second piece revealed the $2.5 million-mansion into which he moved in once he left the presidency. Saca is now in jail, waiting for a trial, and Labrador’s articles were recognized in 2014 with an Honorific Mention by the Latin-American Conference of Investigative Journalism held by the Press and Society Institute of Peru (Ipys). Likewise, one year later, in 2015, another Labrador’s story was recognized by Ipys. The story revealed the close ties between a powerful businessman and a former General Attorney who received favors (such as trips on private-jets) from the former. Now, the General Attorney is in jail and businessman Enrique Rais is fugitive while waiting for a trial with charges of corruption. Labrador has traveled to Colombia, Guatemala and the United States to write stories about human trafficking, drug trafficking and politics. He worked for six months at Capital, a Madrid-based economic magazine while attending studies on European political system. 

Gabriel Labrador Aragón was selected for the 2018 European Press Prize shortlist with ‘Enslaved Land‘