Honduras: Body of kidnapped journalist found in Honduras

IFEX

Comité por la Libre Expresión - C-Libre  

11 July 2013 Honduras's chief federal public prosecutor, Roberto Ramírez Aldana, confirmed  that the dismembered body found in Siboney lake in Villanueva, Cortes, is that of journalist Aníbal Barrow, who was kidnapped on 24 June.

The discovery was possible because of information from a protected witness who revealed the location where the body was found, with signs of being burned.

According to Ramírez Aldana, forensic evidence confirmed, without a doubt, that the body, which was found on 9 July, was that of Barrow. The journalist had been missing for 16 days.

The San Pedro Sula department of Forensic Medicine handed over Barrow's body to his eldest son on 10 July at 7 p.m. so that the funeral could take place.

On the same day, the city's criminal court said that arrest warrants had been issued for four people implicated in the murder.

Aníbal Barrow, who was 65 and an agricultural engineer as well as a university professor, was the presenter of a TV programme called "Aníbal Barrow y Nada Más" (“Aníbal Barrow and nothing more”) broadcast in the mornings on Globo TV.

Barrow is now the first journalist killed in the country in 2013. Thirty-five journalists and media workers have been murdered in Honduras in the last decade (2003-2013).