Authorities in the city of Puerto de Cortés have issued an arrest warrant for a suspect in the assassination attempt on a journalist in Honduras, reported the organization Committee for Free Expression in Honduras (C-Libre in Spanish) on Wednesday, July 18.
Reporter Selvin Martínez, of the national television station JBN, identified suspect Joaquín Molina Andrade as the person who allegedly shot at him 12 times on July 11 as he was driving on a motorcycle to his daughter's school, according to El Heraldo.
The journalist said the attacker was the leader of one of the criminal gangs, or "maras," known throughout Central America for their extreme violence, said Reporters Without Borders.
On April 26, the reporter said his home had been shot at and on May 18, C-Libre issued an alert about an attempt to kidnap the journalist's wife.
Fearing for his life and that of his family because of the repeated attacks, the journalist has sought protection from Honduran authorities.
Honduras, where a murder is committed every 74 minutes, is the country with the world's highest murder rate according to the United Nations and is the second-most dangerous country for journalists in the Americas. For more information, see this map from the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas about attacks against 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.
