A Mexican crime reporter missing since January 2007 was killed by members of the Los Zetas drug cartel, only a few days after he wrote an article about the gang’s drug trafficking activities in Mexico’s southeastern state of Tabasco. The article mentioned the names of some of the drug cartel members.
Rodolfo Rincón Taracena, an investigative crime reporter for the daily Tabasco Hoy in Villahermosa, the capital of Tabasco, went missing on 20 January 2007. He had left his newspaper’s offices at 7pm, saying that he would return shortly.
The attorney general’s office in Tabasco confirmed on Sunday, 28 February, that Rincón was murdered by members of the Los Zetas cartel, because of articles he had written, Tabasco Hoy told IPI today.
The attorney general’s finding is based mostly on confessions by members of the Los Zetas cartel, who have been arrested since 2007.
In a conversation with the IPI Secretariat in Vienna, the Tabasco Hoy spokesperson said that Jose Akal Sosa, a member of Los Zetas arrested in 2007, reportedly admitted responsibility for kidnapping Rincón. Other detainees told the authorities that cartel member Roberto Hernandez Cruz or Esteban Enriquez Rodriguez, aka “El Doriga,” who was killed in a shoot-out with police in June 2007, was responsible for killing the journalist.
The suspects’ admissions led to the search of a property where the burnt remains of at least five people were found in metal drums, according to local news reports.
With this conclusion, the attorney general’s office has closed the case.
“Impunity is a major problem in Mexico,” a representative of Tabasco Hoy told IPI. “But in this case we have to acknowledge that the police have carried out a thorough investigation.”
IPI Director David Dadge said: “We are saddened at Rincón Taracena’s tragic death. The results of this investigation are small consolation for the loss of a journalist who, with admirable courage, chose to expose crime in one of the world’s most dangerous places for reporters. IPI will not forget Rincón’s sacrifice, and that of all the other brave journalists in Mexico who have been attacked and killed because they dared to keep the public informed.”
IPI had highlighted the case of Rincón Taracena in its ‘Justice Denied’ campaign, which condemned Rincón’s disappearance and the failure of the Mexican authorities to prosecute his abductors.
IPI Director Dadge highlighted the importance of IPI’s Justice Denied campaign in a video response – broadcast on Youtube and the IPI website – to the news of Rincón’s fate.
Rincón had begun receiving threatening telephone calls in 2006, and even after his disappearance his newspaper continued to receive threats, including from Los Zetas. In May 2007, the threats became particularly gruesome. The severed head of a local councilman, Terencio Sastre, from the nearby municipality of El Cedro, was left outside Tabasco Hoy’s offices in Villahermosa in an apparent attempt to intimidate the newspaper’s reporters.
Mexico remains one of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists. IPI Death Watch statistics show that Rincón is the 42nd journalist to have been killed since 2000. Last year, eleven journalists were murdered in Mexico.
