Mexican journalist found dead

Authorities believe Regina Martínez, who often wrote about drug cartels in Veracruz, was murdered

guardian.co.uk, Associated Press in Veracruz, Sunday 29 April 2012

Police and residents outside Regina Martínez's house in the Felipe
Carrillo neighbourhood in Xalapa. Photograph: Reuters

A correspondent for the Mexican news magazine Proceso has been found dead inside her home in Veracruz state. Authorities believe the journalist, who often wrote about drug trafficking, was murdered.

Regina Martínez's body was found by police inside the bathroom of her home in the state capital, Xalapa, and there were signs of heavy blows to her face and body, the state's attorney general's office said in a statement. Authorities said initial evidence suggested she died of asphyxiation.

Martínez was the Xalapa correspondent for Proceso, one of Mexico's oldest and most respected investigative news magazines, and she often wrote about drug cartels in the area. Proceso said in a news story on its website that she had worked there for 10 years.

Authorities provided no possible motive for her killing.

The Veracruz government spokeswoman Gina Dominguez said agents were searching Martínez's home late on Saturday for evidence.

"All lines of investigation will be exhausted. The fact that she was a journalist is one of them," she said.

Recently Veracruz has been plagued by cartel violence, some of it between the powerful Zetas and the so-called Jalisco Cartel New Generation, which is believed to be linked to the Sinaloa cartel. The coastal state is also on a human trafficking route north to the United States.

The Veracruz governor, Javier Duarte, has ordered an exhaustive investigation into her death, he said in a statement.

Police found Martínez's body after receiving a tip from a neighbour that her house had been left open since early in the day.

In the past year, at least three journalists have been found dead in Veracruz, including Martínez.

In July 2011, a reporter on police matters with the newspaper Notiver, Yolanda Ordaz de la Cruz, was found with her throat cut.

A month earlier, gunmen killed Miguel Angel Lopez Velasco, a columnist and deputy editor with Notiver. He was shot together with his wife and one of his children.

Media watchdogs consider Mexico one of the most dangerous countries in which to be a journalist.

There is disagreement on the number of journalist killings. Mexico's national human rights commission says 74 were killed from 2000 to 2011. The New-York-based Committee to Protect Journalists says 51 were killed in that time.

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