Slain journalist leaves wife about to give birth and 5-year-old son

Reporters Without Borders was saddened to learn today that José Alberto Velásquez López, a journalist and lawyer based in Tulum, in the eastern state of Quintana Roo, died on the night of 22 December after being shot as he drove home. The editor of the Diario Express de Tulum newspaper and a contributor to Canal 30, a local TV station, Velásquez left a wife who is about to give birth and a five-year-old son. “Yet another Mexican journalist has been gunned down, showing that there is never any truce in Mexico, not even for holidays,” Reporters Without Borders said. “We offer our condolences to the Velásquez family and we urge the authorities to protect his wife and son, who are now in a very vulnerable situation.” Velásquez was driving home when two men on a motorcycle shot him in the chest as they passed him. He managed to carry out driving for a while but then lost control of his car and hit another vehicle. He died while being rushed to a nearby hospital by Red Cross doctors. The authorities said prosecutors were investigating the possibility that the motive was linked to his work as a lawyer or that the murder was a crime of passion. Colleagues dismissed the crime of passion theory and suggested the murder may been carried out by supporters of Marciano Dzul, a leading local member of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), who had often been criticised by Velásquez.