Mexican journalist killed hours after writing about official’s role in state-sponsored disappearance of 43 students

Just hours before his killing, Fredid Roman had posted a column about the disappearance and potential massacre of 43 university students in 2014

A journalist became the 15th to be killed this year when he was shot in southern Mexico on Monday.

Fredid Roman was fatally shot inside his vehicle in the city of Chilpancingo, the capital of Guerrero state, the Associated Press reported. Mr Roman presented the programme The Reality of Guerrero, where he covered politics.

Just hours before his killing, Mr Roman had posted a column online discussing former Mexico attorney general Jesús Murillo Karam’s arrest in the investigation into the disappearance and potential massacre of 43 university students in 2014, CNN en Espanol reported.

In the post, Mr Roman wrote about an alleged meeting between top government officials in the aftermath of the students’ disappearance, amid accusations raised by a truth commission that they worked to cover up what had been done to them.

Mr Roman also criticised President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, former Guerrero Governor Angel Aguirre Rivero and other political leaders’ response after the commission found in a report last week that the state had sponsored the crime. The commission heard testimonies from surviving students who recounted how Mexican police and military ambushed and opened fire on the buses where the students were travelling to a protest in commemoration of another massacre at the hands of Mexican armed forces.

At least 80 arrest warrants have been issued in the case. Authorities are yet to determine whether Mr Roman’s killing is linked to his recent or previous reporting.

The prosecutor’s office in Guerrero said in a statement on Monday that another line of investigation they are considering at the moment is that Mr Ramon’s killing could be linked to the murder of his son back on 1 July.

Fredid Roman (Fredid Roman)

Mr Roman’s nephew, Pedro Roman, told Radio Formula that organised crime leaders David Barrientos and Jesus Zabila Samora had threatened his uncle.

Before his death, Mr Roman was reportedly advocating for the National Guard to be sent to areas of Chilpancingo targeted by the criminal group “Los Ardillos,” where Mr Barrientos and Mr Samora allegedly operated.

Pedro Roman told Formula that Barrientos allegedly told his uncle he would end his family and that Mr Roman would be the next.

According to the AP, Mexico is now considered the most dangerous place in the world for journalists to exercise their profession outside a war zone.

Mr Roman’s killing comes just a week after independent journalist Juan Arjón López’s body was found in the state of Sonora, near the border with Arizona. He died from a blow to the head.

According to Reporters Without Borders, about 150 journalists have been killed in Mexico since 2000. Fifteen have gone missing this year alone. The organisation said Mexican officials had failed to carry out the reforms needed to end the violence.

The Committee to Protect Journalists has condemned the attacks against reporters in Mexico, and decried the “climate of impunity [that] continues to fuel these attacks.”