A journalist for one of Mexico’s leading newspapers was found dead in the western state of Nayarit, The Conference said on Saturday.
“A body found in the village of Huachines… in the municipality of Tepic has been identified as Luis Martin Sanchez Iniguez, 59 years old, correspondent of The Conference“said the newspaper on its website.
‘Signs of violence’ on the body
Sanchez Iniguez has been missing since Wednesday and his wife filed a missing persons report with Mexican authorities on Friday.
He was last seen in Xalisco, a town in Nayarit that has long been involved in heroin and opium trafficking.
The prosecutor’s office said on Saturday that relatives had identified the body, which had been dead for at least a day or two.
“The body was found with signs of violence, and two handwritten signs were found on it,” prosecutors said in a statement.
Authorities have not disclosed what the messages said, but such notes are often left by drug cartels with the bodies of victims. The prosecutor’s office said the motive for the killing is still under investigation.
Journalists under attack in Mexico
The Conference Journalists have been targeted in the past, including Miroslava Breach, who was killed in Chihuahua in March 2017, and Javier Valdez, who was killed in Sinaloa in May of the same year.
The murders are part of a broader spate of violence against journalists in Mexico that has escalated under President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
Press-related murders increased by 85% in the first half of his term compared to his predecessor.
Meanwhile, 2022 was one of the deadliest media workers in Mexico, with 15 deaths.
If the police can confirm that Sanchez Iniguez was killed, he will be at least the second journalist killed in Mexico this year.
In February, news photographer Jose Ramiro Araujo was stabbed and beaten to death in the northern Mexican border state of Baja California.
zc/wd (AP, AFP, Reuters)
