Kidnapped Mexican reporter found dead

Mexico City, Nov 4 : A crime reporter kidnapped outside his home in the northwestern Mexican city of Durango was found dead 10 hours later, authorities said.

The body of Vladimir Antuna, 39, who worked for El Tiempo de Durango newspaper, was found behind a diabetes clinic and a sports centre, sources at the Durango state Attorney General's Office said Tuesday.

The reporter showed signs of having died "by strangulation" and no bullet wounds were noticed on his body, the sources said.

Antuna was kidnapped Monday morning while driving to work, when his SUV was intercepted.

In mid-May, crime reporter Eliseo Barron Hernandez was kidnapped by seven masked men who burst into his home in the city of Torreon, Coahuila, when he was there with his wife and their two daughters.

His body was found the next day in an irrigation canal in Durango state.

Reporters Without Borders, a Paris-based watchdog group, said that 55 journalists have been slain in Mexico since the year 2000.

Fifty-nine Mexican journalists have been attacked, and three of them were killed, during the third quarter of this year, according to a report by the organisation's Article19 and the National Social Communication Centre.

--IANS