Mexico: Journalist killed weeks after murdering his colleague

ZITÁCUARO, Mexico (AP) — Six weeks ago journalist Armando Linares tried to hold back his tears while reporting on video the murder of his colleague. “I don't know what's going to happen,” he said, but “we're going to keep pointing out corruptions... even if life goes along with it.” On Wednesday his relatives were preparing to bury him after he became the eighth journalist killed in Mexico this year.

Linares continued to publish on the news site he ran, Monitor Michoacán, after the death of cameraman Roberto Toledo. He wrote stories about monarch butterflies that winter in the mountains around his town, Zitácuaro, and other news that occasionally included criticism of local officials.

But the threat persisted in that locality in western Mexico.

“There are names, we know where all that comes from,” Linares had said looking at the camera on January 31 when he reported publicly and with a broken voice about the death threats he had received and the murder of Toledo.

Shortly after, in a conversation with The Associated Press, he indicated that the threats continued and that the authorities had activated the protection mechanism by assigning him National Guard officers for custody.

But on Tuesday night he was shot dead at his home in Zitácuaro. His body was found in the portal with shots in the chest, according to the state prosecutor's office. The authorities recovered 9-millimeter bullet casings and did not provide, for the time being, a motive for the attack.

In his morning conference on Wednesday, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said that Linares “did not accept official protection” as two colleagues from the news portal did. The president's statement raised doubts as to whether the victim could have left the program at some point.

While in his village they were preparing to fire him, small groups of Mexican journalists were protesting in different parts of the country,

“The journalistic union of Michoacán asks all public servants to spare their condolences,” reporter Rodolfo Montes said during the president's press conference. “There is indignation... there is anger, there is impotence because of this wave of murders.”

López Obrador repeated that there is no impunity in his government and assured that “there are no elements in any of these murders to point out public servants as responsible.” However, he spoke again of the “lies” of the media and “mercenary” journalists.

At the Congress in Morelia, the capital of the state of Michoacán, dozens of Armando Linares's comrades took the hemicycle with signs that read “Pacifist Government Doesn't Kill Journalists” and “Press, Don't Shoot”. Similar proclamations were repeated at another event on freedom of expression held at the Norwegian embassy in Mexico City.

“Armando's calls for alert and help were not heard,” said the collective “Ni Uno Más Michoacán” in a statement Wednesday, which also denounced that both the federal and state governments questioned his professionalism and dismissed the threats against the portal.

Mexico is the most dangerous country for the press in the Western Hemisphere, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). “They are killed in war zones, they are killed in areas where politicians and criminals are colluding,” said its representative in Mexico, Jan-Albert Hootsen, referring to two journalists who were also killed on Tuesday in Ukraine.

“In a world where misinformation and manipulation of each narrative is a goal brutally pursued by those in power and willing to use lethal violence, journalists are considered legitimate targets and impunity is the most powerful tool to silence them,” Hootsen reported.

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AP journalist María Verza contributed to this article.