Five men are due to go on trial on Tuesday over the killing of an Amazonian Indigenous leader, in a legal case that could test whether Peru can hold perpetrators accountable for violence linked to illegal logging and drug trafficking in one of the world’s most dangerous regions for environmental defenders.

The Kichwa tribal leader Quinto Inuma Alvarado was killed on 29 November 2023, after repeatedly denouncing illegal activity within his community’s territory.

Prosecutors are seeking life sentences under charges of contract killing, a first in a case involving the death of an Indigenous environmental defender in Peru.

The trial will be closely watched by Indigenous groups, environmental advocates and international observers as a test of whether Peru can curb violence linked to illegal deforestation and drug trafficking in the Amazon, where community leaders who defend forests and land rights often face threats with little protection and few cases ever reach court.

“My father was deeply committed to his territory and his community,” said 30-year-old Kevin Arnol Inuma. “Being a real environmental defender requires a lot of sacrifice – walking through the forest, in sun and rain, and exposing yourself to danger.”

Kevin said his father – who was from Santa Rosillo de Yanayacu, in Peru’s northern Amazonian region of San Martín – had received repeated threats for opposing illegal activities and was aware of the risks.

“He used to tell us that one day they might kill him and that we should be prepared,” he said.

The killing of Inuma followed years of threats and official warnings that went unheeded, according to Cristina Gavancho, a lawyer with the Lima-based Instituto de Defensa Legal, which has accompanied Indigenous organisations and victims’ families since the killing.

Prosecutors allege that the suspects, believed to have been illegal loggers, targeted Inuma because of his role in defending Indigenous land and reporting illegal activities to authorities.

The attack took place while Inuma was travelling by boat along a river route used to reach his community. He was shot during the ambush and fell into the river. Another community member was injured and survived.

Five of the six suspects originally charged will face trial. A sixth suspect was killed in an attempted arrest last year during which he attacked police officers with a machete, Gavancho said.

Prosecutors say they have built a strong case, including forensic gunshot-residue tests and witness testimony placing the accused at the scene around the time of the killing. Investigators have also linked the suspects to individuals whom Inuma had repeatedly reported to authorities for illegal logging and drug trafficking.

If the court were to hand down life sentences, Gavancho said, it would mark an unprecedented outcome in Peru over the killing of an Indigenous environmental defender. Advocates say a ruling of that kind could send a strong signal that such crimes will no longer go unpunished in Peru and farther afield in Latin America.

While high-profile killings of environmental defenders in countries such as Brazil, Honduras and the Philippines have led to arrests and prosecutions, advocates say these cases have seldom resulted in outcomes seen as setting lasting precedents. The 2022 killing in Brazil of the British journalist Dom Phillips and the Indigenous expert Bruno Pereira led to multiple charges but has yet to yield a ruling widely considered as precedent-setting.

Legal experts say the Peruvian case could mark a rare break from what is viewed as widespread impunity over attacks on Indigenous environmental defenders.

Gavancho said: “This case is significant because it is the opportunity that the Peruvian state has to establish an exemplary sanction.”

At least 35 Indigenous defenders have been killed in Peru over the past decade, according to Indigenous organisations and human rights groups, including Global Witness.

The case has also drawn attention to the failure of Peru’s system for protecting environmental and Indigenous defenders. Inuma had been granted a security detail under a state protection mechanism created in 2021, but those measures were never implemented.