Corruption and Crime

There have been three separate cases of threats against investigative journalists in Kosovo during the past month, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has said. The target in the most recent case was Vehbi Kajtazi, who wrote a story for the February 18 issue of the daily Koha Ditore about internal wrangling and divisions resulting from recent decisions by President Fatmir Sejdiu and the judicial...

Newspaper journalist Maan Aqil was released from prison Tuesday after the authorities held him for three months without ever charging him, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. The national criminal investigations department still has not said why it arrested Aqil at his place of work on November 22. A reporter with the government daily Al-Thawra, he had written articles denouncing...

A man believed to have gunned down Venezuelan journalist Orel Sambrano in 2009 in reprisal for his reporting on drug trafficking was arrested on Sunday, the local press reported. Venezuelan investigative police, known as CIPC, arrested former police officer David Antonio Yánez Inciarte during a police drug raid in the city of Moron, department of Carabobo, according to local press reports. Yánez...

Investigative journalist Maryna Koktysh, the deputy editor of the Minsk-based independent newspaper Narodnaya Volya, is being continually harassed over her coverage of a case involving senior police officers and interior ministry officials in the southeastern Belarus city of Homyel, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. “The independent press has just done its duty by reporting...

The Salvadorean police have arrested three more suspects in the investigation into documentary filmmaker Christian Poveda’s murder on September 2, 2009, according to Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). Their arrests bring the total number of suspects detained to 28. The police say they think a total of 36 people had a part in the killing of Poveda, who had French and Spanish dual citizenship. The...

Muhammad al-Rabou'e, a Yemeni reporter for the monthly Al-Qahira who wrote several articles about the alleged activities of an infamous criminal group was killed Saturday, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Al-Jazeera and other news outlets said five individuals burst into Al-Rabou'e home in the district of Beni Qais, in Yemen’s northern province of Hajja, and shot him...

There have been renewed cases of threats and physical violence against Bulgarian journalists in the past few days, according to Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). An assault on TV reporter Dimitar Varbanov on February 10 and a police spokesman’s threats against news agency reporter Ivan Yanev in the city of Stara Zagora on February 8 show that a climate of intimidation continues. These incidents and...

Luis Valdez Villacorta, the former mayor of Pucallpa (the capital of the east-central region of Ucayali), has been acquitted for the second time of masterminding the murder of radio Frecuencia Oriental journalist Alberto Rivera Fernández in Pucallpa on April 21, 2004, according to Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). Valdez was acquitted on February 8 by a Lima criminal court at the end of a...

Former Prime Minister Janez Jansa and the Slovenian state have brought defamation charges against Finnish journalist Magnus Berglund in connection the bribery allegations he made during a programme broadcast on Finnish TV station YLE on September 1, 2008. Berglund accused Jansa, other senior officials and high ranking military officers of collecting around 20 million euros in illegal commissions...

Jorge Ochoa Martínez, a Mexican editor and publisher in Guerrero state, died late Friday after being shot in the face, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has said quoting local press reports. Ochoa was killed in the town of Ayutla de los Libres after leaving a birthday party for a local politician, a friend and a coworker told New York-based CPJ. A spokesperson for Guerrero’s governor told...