Television reporter Luis Arturo Mondragon was shot dead on Monday as he left the studios of Canal 19, where he worked, in Santa Clara de Danli, a town outside Tegucigalpa in Honduras, according to news reports. He was killed by two gunmen, a Honduran Security Department spokesperson was quoted as saying.

Family members suggested to Sauceda that the murder was linked to personal disputes between Mondragon and unnamed individuals in the region, the Latin American Herald Tribune reported. Sauceda also said that the police have not identified a motive or suspects, but are exploring criminal charges brought against Mondragon last year for cattle theft and sexual assault, media reports said. The authorities in Honduras have a poor track record on solving the murders of journalists – which have risen alarmingly in recent months.

According to IPI research, Mondragon is the seventh journalist killed in Honduras this year, making the Latin American country the world’s most dangerous for journalists in 2010. No one has been convicted in any of the slayings. In only one case, a judge has issued arrest warrants for four suspects.

Channel 8 television presenter Carol Cabrera was recently forced to flee to Canada, following two attempts on her life. Last December, Cabrera’s pregnant teenage daughter was murdered while driving her mother’s car. In March 2010, journalism student Joseph Hernández Ochoa, 24, was killed while driving with Cabrera in the Honduran capital Tegucigalpa, in a murder that IPI condemned at the time.

“We urge the Honduran authorities to promptly and thoroughly investigate the grounds for Mr. Mondragon’s killing, and to determine if the murder bears any connection to his work as a journalist,” said IPI Director David Dadge. “We are alarmed by the fact that journalists are now being murdered with impunity in Honduras.”

Violence against journalists in Honduras has increased since a June 2009 coup and reporters both close to, and critical of, the coup leaders have received threats and been targeted for assassination.