Moisés Dagdug Lutzow, who owned media company Grupo VX, was stabbed to death in his home in Villahermosa, in the Mexican state of Tabasco, on February 20, 2016, according to press reports. Dagdug also hosted a weekly program for the company’s television station TVX.
Assailants stabbed Dagdug before fleeing in the journalist’s vehicle, later abandoning the vehicle and a knife that may have been used in the attack next to a highway roughly 15 kilometers away, according to local news reports. Witnesses said they saw two individuals flee from the vehicle, according to reports.
Angel Antonio Jiménez, news director at Grupo VX, told CPJ he was at the station’s offices across the street from Dagdug’s home when he heard a loud noise, Dagdug’s vehicle crashing through the closed gate at his home, at around 7 a.m. on the day Dagdug was killed. Jiménez told CPJ he called the police and Dagdug’s sister almost immediately. He said security-camera footage showed two men driving Dagdug’s vehicle through the gate as they fled, and that investigators now had a copy of this tape.
The Tabasco State Attorney General’s Office on February 20 released a statement saying it was investigating the murder. A representative from that office told CPJ that those in charge of the investigation could not immediately comment on the case.
Dagdug, who presented the weekly news analysis program “De Frente a Tabasco” (Facing Tabasco), reported on local politics and sensitive social issues, including a recent spate of violence and vigilante killings in Tabasco, Jiménez told CPJ. In a January 5 episode, Dagdug denounced threats he said he had received for his reporting. He said politicians in Tabasco were not used to criticism but vowed that he would continue to do his work, without fear.
Jiménez told CPJ that as far as he knew, Dagdug had not formally reported those threats to authorities. He also said that the Dagdug’s house was broken into twice last year, and that laptops and other electronics had been taken. As a result of those break-ins, Jimenez said, Dagdug had increased security precautions in his home.
Dagdug had also been a member of Mexico’s House of Representatives with the Party of the Democratic Revolution from 2006-2009.