by Our Foreign Desk

MEXICAN journalists reacted angrily on Sunday to indications of a government cover-up over the murder of a campaigning photographer.

Authorities announced on Sunday that photojournalist Ruben Espinosa was one of five people found dead in a Mexico City flat on Friday.

Media reported that the other four victims, all women, were Mr Espinoza’s three flatmates and their housekeeper.

The five had all been tied up and shot in the head. The bodies showed marks of torture.

At a press conference on Sunday, prosecutor Rodolfo Rios Garza said authorities were following protocols for crimes against journalists and crimes against women, as well as looking at robbery as a possible motive in the case.

But Mr Rios failed to acknowledge that Mr Espinosa had sought refuge in the capital in June after being subjected to harassment in another state, prompting shouts and protests from reporters who demanded to know whether those incidents were being investigated.

The prosecutor responded by merely repeating that all lines of investigation were being pursued, including the victim’s work as a journalist.

Mr Espinosa fled Xalapa, the capital of Veracruz state on the Gulf of Mexico coast, for the capital after saying that unknown people were following him, photographing him and harassing him outside his home.

He had been working for investigative news magazine Proceso and other titles.

In 2012, he was threatened while taking photos of students detained during a protest.

Regina Martinez, a colleague of Mr Espinosa at Proceso, had been murdered earlier that year.

Mr Espinosa alleged that a government representative controlling the crowd had told him: “Stop taking photos if you don’t want to end up like Regina.”

In an echo of Mr Rios’s comments, Ms Martinez’s work reporting on government corruption was never considered as a reason for her killing. Instead, officials in Veracruz claimed the motive had been robbery.

It has been a dangerous state for reporters, with 11 journalists killed under the administration of governor Javier Duarte, who was elected in 2010.

Two more, including Mr Espinosa, have been killed outside the state and three have gone missing.

The US-based Committee to Protect Journalists has said that 90 per cent of the murders of journalists in Mexico since 1992 have gone unpunished.