Hitmen on motorcycles shot and killed journalist Carlos Williams Flores in the town of Tegucigalpita, Honduras on the afternoon of Sept 13.
Flores, who worked at Canal 22 in Cuyamel and directed the program Sin pelos en la lengua (Without mincing words), was shot upon returning to Cuyamel from an assignment covering agriculture, reported La Prensa. The newspaper added that hitmen on motorcycles were reportedly “waiting to kill him.”
At the time, he was with a female employee from Canal 22 who was injured, but survived. Flores died after being taken to a medical center.
A police spokesperson, deputy commissioner Luis Osavas, identified the journalist killed as Carlos William Juárez, although various media outlets have reported his last name as Flores, according to AFP.
On his program, Flores reported on irregularities in the municipality and country, according to La Prensa’s reporting. Honduras’ Committee for Free Expression (C-Libre) said Flores was critical of “ ‘the companies dedicated to sowing grass to generate energy and companies of African palm.’”
“It appears that these companies have deforested thousands of hectares of forest in the Cuyamelito, Cuyamel and Motagua River wetlands,” C-Libre reported.
The journalist also owned a pool hall where a police officer was killed two months ago, La Prensa said.
Osavas told AFP that authorities are investigating whether Flores’ murder and the killing at his business are related.
Citing the National Commissioner of Human Rights, AFP reported that 71 journalists, owners and employees of media outlets have been killed in Honduras since 2003. Impunity in those crimes is at 91 percent in these crimes, it added.
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.
