Journalist kidnapped in northern Mexico
May 18, 2012, 6:15 PM
MEXICO CITY (AP) – Mexican authorities say masked gunmen have kidnapped a police-beat reporter in the northern state of Sonora.
State prosecutors’ spokesman Jose Larrinaga says reporter Marcos Antonio Avila Garcia was at a car wash in Ciudad Obregon when he was kidnapped Wednesday by three people with automatic rifles.
Larrinaga said Friday no ransom had been requested for the reporter, who covered police news for Diario Sonora de la Tarde and El Regional.
Larrinaga says police are investigating whether drug traffickers took Avila. He added that the 39-year-old reporter often wrote about organized crime.
Mexico has become one of the world’s most dangerous countries for journalists in recent years as drug cartels fight bloody turf battles.
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