Journalist killed in Mexico after receiving threats

MEXICO–A Mexican journalist was killed Thursday outside a bar in the coastal city of Playa del Carmen in the southeastern state of Quintana Roo after receiving threats, local authorities said.

The state prosecutor's office reported in a press release that they opened an investigation into the homicide of Francisco Romero Diaz after the police found his body after answering a call to the emergency line.

Romero Diaz directed an informative Facebook page called "Ocurrio Aqui" ("Happened Here"), and collaborated in the past with a news website, "Semanario Playa News," whose director was shot dead on July 24, 2018.

The prosecutor's office said that Romero Diaz complained to his staff on April 12 that he had received threats. According to the local press, authorities found the dead body of the journalist after 6:00 a.m. local time (1100 GMT) next to his motorcycle in the parking lot of a bar called "La Gotta.

The authorities at the scene reported that the journalist suffered blows and a wound apparently caused by a gunshot. With the murder of Romero Diaz, at least five journalists have been killed so far in 2019 in Mexico. ---