03 July 2009
Gabriel Fino Noriega
Shooting
A journalist has been murdered in a town on the Caribbean coast of Honduras, but the killing is not linked to the political unrest sparked by last week’s coup, police said.
Gabriel Fino Noriega was killed by an unidentified man “supposedly over personal animosity” in San Juan Pueblo, a town in Atlantida province, some 350 kilometers (217 miles) north of Tegucigalpa, a police spokesman said.
Fino Noriega, who was Tegucigalpa-based Radio America’s correspondent in San Juan Pueblo, was shot three times, the police spokesman said.
The journalist was attacked while getting into his automobile after filing a report at a radio station in San Juan Pueblo, a Radio America spokesman told Efe.
The killing “is not linked, it had nothing to do” with the political crisis caused by the ouster last Sunday of President Mel Zelaya, the Radio America spokesman said.
Both supporters and opponents of the ousted president have attacked reporters and media outlets, including foreign press organizations, in recent days.
