Ricardo Uceda

Ricardo Uceda Pérez (born July 27, 1954) is a Peruvian journalist notable for his award-winning coverage of military and government corruption.

Background Uceda was born in Chiclayo, Peru in 1954. He worked for the magazine El Mundo in 1974, then served short stints with the daily newspapers Expreso, El Diario, and El Nacional. Following the story, Uceda was the subject of a police investigation for "falsifying information", a charge of which he was later cleared.

In one high-profile case in 1993, members of a dissatisfied army faction directed Uceda to a mass grave containing the corpses of nine students and one professor kidnapped from La Cantuta University. When angry officials accused Uceda of obstructing justice in response to his reporting—a crime punishable by a prison term—the Peruvian Congress held a vote to guarantee his safety.

In 1994, Ricardo Uceda resigned as editor-in-chief of Sí to form a special investigative team at El Comercio, then Peru's most popular daily newspaper.

In 2000, the International Press Institute selected him as one of 50 World Press Freedom Heroes of the past half-century. His book Muerte en el Pentagonito: Los cementerios secretos del Ejército Peruano was shortlisted for the Lettre Ulysses Award for the Art of Reportage in 2005, losing to Scribbling the Cat: Travels with an African Soldier by UK author Alexandra Fuller. In the same year, he won the Maria Moors Cabot prize of Columbia University, the oldest international award in the field of journalism.