Journalist killed by suspicious explosion at his apartment

Reporters Without Borders today expressed its great concern at the death of José Miranda Virgen, journalist and vice-president of the daily provincial newspaper El Sur de Veracruz, after a suspicious explosion at his apartment on 11 October. "This incident must be thoroughly investigated to find the cause of the explosion," said Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Robert Ménard in a letter to interior minister Santiago Creel Miranda. The authorities said a gas leak caused the dawn explosion that seriously injured the journalist, who died on 16 October. But local media noted that the apartment's living room was more damaged than the kitchen, where the leak supposedly was. The paper's director-general, Pablo Robles Barajas, noted that Miranda Virgen had just written a series of articles about links between druglords and state police. He told Reporters Without Borders he had asked for an independent analysis of the explosion.