Ruben Espinosa murder case: suspect arrested in relation to killings in Mexico
Ruben Espinosa murder case: suspect arrested in relation to killings in Mexico
Two other suspects connected to brutal deaths of photojournalist, his social activist friend, her two roommates and housekeeper on Friday remain at large
Nina Lakhani in Mexico City
Wednesday 5 August 2015 18.18 EDT
A man has been arrested in connection with the massacre of photojournalist Ruben Espinosa and four women in Mexico City after fingerprints found at the crime scene were matched through a criminal database, according to the country’s most senior prosecutor.
The suspect, who has not been named, has a criminal record for rape and assault, Rodolfo Rios Garza told reporters. Two other suspects remain at large.
Espinosa, who fled the Gulf Coast state of Veracruz in June after being threatened, was tied up, tortured and shot in the head in an apartment in a middle-class neighbourhood on Friday.
Also killed were his friend Nadia Vera, a social activist, and two of her roommates - a 19-year-old student and an unnamed Colombian woman - as well as their 40-year-old housekeeper.
More:
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/aug/05/ruben-espinosa-suspect-arrested-murders-mexico
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Thousands protest torture-murder of Mexican photojournalist and four women
By Rafael Azul
6 August 2015
Thousands of demonstrators have taken to the streets of Mexico City and other major cities in response to the brutal July 31 murder of Rubén Espinosa Becerril, a photographer and investigative reporter, along with four women.
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Protest against the murders of photojournalist Rubén Espinosa and four women
Credit: Eneas de Troya
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In the capital Sunday, several thousand marched carrying placards bearing the journalist’s photograph and chanting, “It was the state, it was the state.”
Twenty-four hours after family members reported his disappearance, on Friday afternoon police discovered his body with those of the four women in a Mexico City apartment. They had been bound, tortured and each received a coup de grâce to their heads with 9mm bullets.
. . .
Veracruz is a microcosm of a nationwide state terror campaign against reporters, journalists, photographers and other media workers. According to a Mirada Crítica (Rompeviento TV), some 103 journalists have been killed since the year 2000. Another 17 are missing. Others have been detained unlawfully for long periods of time, or kidnapped for ransom.
More:
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/08/06/mexi-a06.html
Mexico's journalists in fear after murder of reporter in 'safe haven' city
Ruben Espinosa's murder has brought fear to journalists in Mexico City - a place once considered a refuge from the violence affecting reporters elsewhere in the country
A vigil for Ruben Espinosa after his funeral in Mexico City
Photo: Mario Arturo Martinez/EPA
By Natasha Pizzey-Siegert, Mexico City
9:00AM BST 10 Aug 2015
In a Mexico City cemetery reporter Pedro Canche looks haggard as he lays a hand-written note among yellow flowers on the grave of a young colleague.
“I owed it to him to come here because we’re in the same state of persecution,” he says, eyes scanning the empty graveyard for anyone lurking in the nearby trees.
He’s paying his respects to Ruben Espinosa, a 31-year old photojournalist murdered in Mexico City on July 31. He was killed along with four women, including an activist, in a flat in a calm middle-class neighbourhood. All the bodies showed signs of torture, some of the women had been raped, and all had execution-style shots to the head.
Journalists are killed here so often it’s rarely front-page news – with 88 killed since 2000, Mexico is the most dangerous country in the Americas for reporters. But the circumstances around Mr Espinosa’s murder make it a grim turning point for the profession.
More:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/centralamericaandthecaribbean/mexico/11793431/Mexicos-journalists-in-fear-after-murder-of-reporter-in-safe-haven-city.html