Mexico arrests 6 suspects in killing of journalist

Prosecutors in Mexico said Wednesday they have arrested six suspects in the January killing of a journalist in the border city of Nuevo Laredo.

The Jan. 13 stabbing of Carlos Dominguez Rodriguez may have been related to his journalistic work but was not related to organized crime, said prosecutors in the northern state of Tamaulipas.

“The results up to this time indicate a probable link between these events and the exercise of freedom of expression,” the federal attorney general’s office said in a statement.

Located across from Laredo, Texas, Nuevo Laredo is dominated by the Northeast cartel and has been the scene of recent shootouts.

State prosecutor Irving Barrios said the motives were still under investigation, but that Dominguez Rodriguez didn’t write about organized crime topics.

Barrios said three of the six suspects “worked in the information industry, but we are still checking whether they were working journalists.”

Officials refused to release the names of the suspects, citing Mexican law which prohibits publicly incriminating people until they are found guilty.

Nor did prosecutors explain why the suspects – who local media reported worked as independent journalists – would have wanted to kill Dominguez Rodriguez, or why the killing was so brutal.

The victim was stabbed two dozen times in front of relatives.