(IPYS/IFEX) – On the evening of 23 August 2006, journalist Jesús Flores Rojas received eight shots to the head when he was at home, putting his car away, in the Los Rosales neighbourhood of the town of El Tigre, located in the state of Anzoátegui, eastern Venezuela. Flores was waiting for the garage door to […]
(IPYS/IFEX) – On the evening of 23 August 2006, journalist Jesús Flores Rojas received eight shots to the head when he was at home, putting his car away, in the Los Rosales neighbourhood of the town of El Tigre, located in the state of Anzoátegui, eastern Venezuela. Flores was waiting for the garage door to be opened when a man walked to the car window and shot him. The murderer then fled in a car that was waiting for him just a few meters away. The motives for the murder are unknown. The journalist was the coordinator of the correspondents’ office of the El Tigre newspaper “Región” and a columnist in other print media outlets in the area. In his articles he denounced alleged acts of corruption in the local public administration.
On 24 August, during a press conference, the head of the El Tigre branch of the Office of Scientific, Penal and Criminal Investigations (Cuerpo de Investigaciones Científicas Penales y Criminalísticas, CICPC), police inspector José Rivero Alfonso, declared that the prevailing hypothesis is that the crime was an act of revenge, using a hired hit man. Rivero declared that an investigation of the articles written by the victim is underway in order to find more leads.
Flores’s daughters stated that their father did not have any known enemies, although it was well known that his articles were not well received by the government officials that he accused.
IPYS will continue investigating in order to establish the motives for the crime.
