PROSECUTORS interrogated a Mexican state governor on Tuesday over his implication in the murders of five people, including a campaigning photojournalist.

Thirteen journalists have been murdered and three have disappeared in south-eastern Veracruz state since Javier Duarte took office in 2010.

Photographer Ruben Espinosa was executed along with three of his female flatmates and their housekeeper in their Mexico City flat on July 31.

They had been tied up, tortured and shot in the head.

Mr Espinosa had fled to the capital, supposedly a safe haven for persecuted journalists, after receiving death threats for his work covering protests in Veracruz.

Mr Duarte was only questioned after journalists ­protested when Mexico City prosecutor Rodolfo Rios apparently tried to cast the multiple murder as a burglary gone wrong.

The governor denied involvement in the killings, calling the accusations against him a “public lynching.”