El Tiempo de Durango
May 3, 2009, in Santa María El Oro , Mexico
Two pickup trucks intercepted Carlos Ortega Samper, a reporter
for the Durango City-based daily El
Tiempo de Durango, as he was driving home in the town of
Four unidentified individuals got off the trucks and pulled the reporter from his car, journalists at El Tiempo de Durango said. As he resisted, the assailants shot him three times in the head with a .40-caliber pistol, according to news reports and CPJ interviews. Ortega, 52, died at the scene.
In an April 2 article, the journalist had alleged that Mayor Martín Silvestre Herrera and Juan Manuel Calderón Guzmán, the local representative for federal programs, had threatened him in connection with his recent reporting on the conditions of a local slaughterhouse. In the same story, Ortega wrote that he was investigating a local police officer, Salvador Flores Triana, for alleged corruption. The journalist said that the three men should be held responsible if anything were to happen to him or his family.
Ortega, also an attorney, had worked as the Santa María El Oro correspondent for El Tiempo de Durango for less than a year. His editor, Saúl García, told CPJ that he believed Ortega was killed in retaliation for his reporting on local government corruption. Authorities did not disclose a possible motive.
Silvestre told local reporters that he had no involvement in the murder. While acknowledging having had disagreements with Ortega, the mayor said he had never threatened him. CPJ calls to the other two officials went unanswered.
Motive Unconfirmed: CPJ is investigating to determine whether the death was work-related.
