A Honduran court sentenced the killer of a journalist to 28 years in prison, reported the newspaper La Tribuna on Tuesday, Sept. 11.
Joseph Cockborn Delgado was accused of killing television reporter Jorge Alberto “Georgino” Orellana on April 20, 2010, outside the offices of Honduras TVH, reported the newspaper El Heraldo. Orellana was the seventh of eight journalists killed during the first six months of 2010.
The Honduran judge concluded that robbery was the crime's motive and the attack was not related to Orellana's work as a journalist, according to Reporters Without Borders.
Honduras has the second highest number of attacks on journalists in the Americas. The National Human Rights Commission lists 31 killed journalists in Honduras with 24 of them occurring since 2010, according to the newspaper La Prensa. Most of the cases are unresolved and authorities often blame the overall high level of insecurity in the Central American country, including the world's highest murder rate.
See this map from the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas for more information about attacks on the press in Central America.
Note from the editor: This story was originally published by the Knight Center’s blog Journalism in the Americas, the predecessor of LatAm Journalism Review.
