Mexico ( Journalist " Found dead " Murdered )

MEXICO CITY – Journalists in the Mexican Gulf state of Veracruz on Wednesday demanded that officials conduct a full investigation of the murder of newspaper reporter Gregorio Jimenez de la Cruz after authorities said his killing was not linked to his work.

Veracruz Gov. Javier Duarte should carry out “a serious investigation and not rule out his journalistic work” as a motive for the murder, journalist Gregorio Antonio Hernandez, a friend of Jimenez de la Cruz, told MVS radio.

Jimenez de la Cruz, a police reporter for the Notisur and Liberal del Sur newspapers, was abducted outside his residence in Villa Allende last Wednesday.

The reporter’s body was found on Tuesday along with those of two other men in clandestine graves in the city of Las Choapas, Veracruz Attorney General Amadeo Flores said.

Authorities did not consider the reporting Jimenez de la Cruz had been doing on the wave of kidnappings and murders in Villa de Allende over the past three months in the investigation, Hernandez said.

Reporters in the southern region of Veracruz state, who have to use pseudonyms or sign stories with the publication’s name to avoid being murdered, feel “indignant” and “powerless” due to the violence, Hernandez said.

“We are going to continue this fight” until officials fulfill their obligation to conduct an investigation that leads to those behind Jimenez de la Cruz’s murder and guarantee the safety of journalists, Hernandez said.

Nearly a dozen journalists have been murdered in Veracruz since Duarte, a member of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, took office in 2010.

Jimenez de la Cruz’s body was “fully identified” by investigators, the attorney general said in a press conference on Tuesday, adding that the motive for the killing was “personal revenge.”

One of the other bodies found in Las Choapas has been identified as that of union leader Ernesto Ruiz Guillen, while the other body appears to be that of an unidentified taxi driver.

The two men were kidnapped several weeks ago and Jimenez de la Cruz reported on their abductions for Notisur.

The three bodies were found as a result of the arrest Monday of Jose Luis Marquez Hernandez at the bus terminal in Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, as he prepared to leave the state, officials said.

Marquez admitted to “having participated in the incidents that led to the disappearance and subsequent murder of Gregorio Jimenez,” the attorney general said.

The suspect told investigators that a bar owner, identified as Teresa de Jesus Hernandez Cruz, hired “a group of hitmen” to abduct Jimenez de la Cruz from his residence and murder him due to “personal differences,” Flores said.

Revenge is still “the consolidated motive” for the killing, Veracruz government spokeswoman Gina Dominguez told Radio Formula on Wednesday.

The investigation is ongoing and authorities are looking for four other suspects linked to the kidnap-murder, Dominguez said.

Marquez’s information was confirmed by the discovery of the three bodies in two clandestine graves at a safe house in Las Choapas, officials said.

The suspect provided information that led to the arrests of four other people, including the bar owner.

Teresa de Jesus Hernandez allegedly paid the hitmen 20,000 pesos (about $1,500) to murder the journalist.

It is “unacceptable to rule out the journalistic work of Gregorio Jimenez as a possible motive for his murder,” the Articulo 19 press rights group said, adding that Veracruz authorities should “exhaust all the possible lines of investigation” and guarantee the safety of the victim’s family and the media outlets at which he worked.

Ten journalists have been murdered, at least three have gone missing and about a dozen others have left Veracruz since 2011 due to the drug-related violence in the state.

A total of 87 journalists have been murdered since 2000 in Mexico, making it the most dangerous country in Latin America for members of the media, the National Human Rights Commission, or CNDH, said.