MEXICO CITY — Mexican national newspaper La Jornada said on Saturday that its staff reporter in the Pacific coastal state of Nayarit has been found dead.
The body of journalist Luis Martín Sánchez Iñiguez was found on the outskirts of the state capital Tepic, La Jornada reported.
The Nayarit state prosecutor’s office said Sánchez Iñiguez, 59, had been missing since Wednesday and had filed an appeal to find him. The journalist’s wife reported that he was missing, along with a computer and his cell phone.
The office said late Saturday that relatives had identified Sánchez Iñiguez’s body and said he had died a day or two before the body was found.
“The body was found with signs of violence and two handwritten signs were found on it,” prosecutors said in a statement, without disclosing the contents of the messages.
Drug gangs often leave handwritten signs with victims’ bodies, but the office says the motive for the killing is still under investigation.
Sánchez Iñiguez was last seen in Xalisco, a Nayarit town long associated with heroin and opium smuggling.
At least he will be the second journalist killed in Mexico this year.
In February, news photographer José Ramiro Araujo was stabbed and beaten to death in the state of Baja California, on the northern border of Mexico.
2022 has been one of the deadliest years for Mexican media workers, with 15 people killed.
Just two days after Sánchez Iñiguez disappeared, another journalist was kidnapped in the same area. State prosecutors said Jonathan Lora Ramírez was abducted Friday by “masked, armed men who came to his home in Xalisco, forced to open the door and take him away”.
Lora Ramírez was found alive and in good condition Saturday, prosecutors said.
The prosecutor’s office said a third communications officer, identified as Osiris Maldonado, has been missing since July 3. Maldonado appears to work in graphic design at La Jornada.
Prosecutors said they were investigating the possibility that the kidnappings and murders were related to the journalists’ professions.
The Committee to Protect Journalists said it “strongly condemns the murder of journalist Luis Martín Sánchez Iñíguez, a reporter for the newspaper La Jornada, in the state of Nayarit, and calls on Mexican authorities for an immediate and credible investigation.” trust.”
