Wednesday, November 13, 2024

Sinaloa journalist murdered

A journalist was found dead in Culiacán, Sinaloa, on Thursday, state authorities said.

The lifeless body of Luis Enrique Ramírez Ramos, director of the Sinaloa-focused news website Fuentes Fidedignas and a columnist for El Debate, was found on a dirt road on the south side of the state capital.

Sinaloa Attorney General Sara Bruna Quiñónez Estrada told a press conference that the body of the 59-year-old journalist was wrapped in black plastic.

The Attorney General’s Office (FGE) said in a statement that an autopsy determined that Ramírez had suffered a brain injury due to blows to the head. “There were no signs of torture, except for the blows to his head that caused his death,” it said.

The FGE said that Ramírez left his home at approximately 3 a.m. Thursday and members of his family didn’t hear from him after that. Fuentes Fidedignas reported that he was abducted near his Culiacán home.

journalist Luis Ramirez killed
Ramirez’s dead body was found on a dirt road wrapped in plastic. Authorities said he’d suffered deadly blows to the head.

The FGE said that an investigation into his murder had been opened and that it would consider motives related to his work as a journalist.

Ramírez, an award-winning journalist who contributed to some of Mexico’s leading newspapers during a 40-year career, received threats in 2010 and went into hiding after three of his friends were murdered. He said in a 2015 interview that he and his slain friends were all privy to sensitive information about former Sinaloa governor Mario López Valdez and ex-government secretary Gerardo Vargas Landeros, who is now mayor of Ahome, a coastal municipality in the north of the state.

Ramírez said that the threats he received came from the state government. Quiñónez Estrada noted that he had spoken of being intimidated in media interviews but had not made any complaint to the FGE.

A complaint he filed with the federal Attorney General’s Office got nowhere, the newspaper Reforma reported.

Sinaloa Governor Rubén Rocha, who took office for the Morena party in November, lamented the death of Ramírez, who he described as a friend. He said in a Twitter message that he had spoken to the attorney general and advocated an “immediate, rigorous and exhaustive investigation” into the crime.

Ramírez is the ninth journalist killed in 2022 and the 34th to be murdered since President López Obrador took office in December 2018.

With reports from Reforma 

Have something to say? Paid Subscribers get all access to make & read comments.
Abstract image of Mexican peso bills and US dollar bills in a chaotic pile

Mexico’s peso falls yet again as Trump cabinet picks spark concern

0
The peso fell against the US dollar for a third consecutive day on Tuesday, reflecting continued uncertainty about a Trump presidency in the U.S.
The Rio Grande river winding into the mountains of Big Bend National Park in Texas

As Mexico falls behind on Rio Grande debt, US and Mexico reach water treaty agreement

0
The provisions adjust an 80-year treaty sharing Rio Grande water that'll let Mexico get out from behind its water debt to the U.S.
Tractor trailer with undocumented male migrants inside being ordered out by a man with a National Immigration Institute uniform. Near him are other migrants already outside the truck and a Mexican soldier in a military gear and holding an automatic weapon stands guard.

In 1 day, authorities find hundreds of migrants in Chihuahua, Oaxaca

0
In a 24-hour period, Mexican authorities took into custody a total of 331 migrants in Oaxaca and Chihuahua, some of whom were being held for ransom.