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Alert

Radio América journalist killed

(RSF/IFEX) - Reporters Without Borders is appalled to learn that journalist Gabriel Fino Noriega, the local correspondent for the national radio station Radio América, was gunned down on 3 July 2009 in San Juan Pueblo, in the Caribbean coast province of Atlántida.

Both Radio América and the local police said they did not think his murder was in any way linked to the crisis caused by the 28 June coup d'état in Honduras.

"We offer our condolences to Fino Noriega's family and colleages, and we urge the police to assign enough resources to the murder investigation so that those responsible and their motive can be identified," Reporters Without Borders said. "A journalist's murder should not be allowed to go unpunished in a region of the country where there is a great deal of drug trafficking."

Aged 42, Fino Noriega was shot by an unidentified gunman as he left Radio Estelar, a local station on which he presented a daily news programme. He died while being taken to hospital. His colleagues said he had not received any threats.

Fino Noriega is the third journalist to be killed in Honduras in 2009. Rafael Munguía, the correspondent of the privately-owned national radio station Radio Cadena Voces, was killed on 31 March in the northwestern city of San Pedro Sula. Osman López of La Tribuna was killed in Tegucigalpa on 18 April.