HUEYAPAN DE OCAMPO, Mexico - The family of the latest journalist murdered in the country demanded a full investigation on Wednesday, rejecting the government's account that he was merely in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Candido Rios, a hard-hitting political reporter in the violent state of Veracruz, was gunned down outside a convenience store on Tuesday along with a former police chief and his bodyguard.

Rios, 55, is the 10th journalist murdered in Mexico this year, and one of more than 100 killed since 2006 in a wave of violence that has made the country one of the most dangerous in the world for the press.

According to Veracruz Deputy Interior Minister Roberto Campa, the real target in the killing was the ex-police chief shot alongside Rios, Victor Antonio Alegria.

But Rios's daughter Cristina Rios Nieves said she was sure her father, who had been under government protection, was assassinated for his reporting.

"He used his journalism to unmask petty tyrants, denounce crimes by the powerful," Cristina, 30, said as relatives held a vigil over Rios's bullet-riddled body.

"I'm asking for justice, for a proper investigation," Rios's widow, Hilda Nieves Martinez, said through tears at the couple's house in the small eastern town of Hueyapan de Ocampo.

She called for authorities to analyze the death threats that she and others say her husband received from the town's former mayor Gaspar Gomez, a veteran politician whom Rios had accused of corruption.

The European Union, Norway and Switzerland also urged the authorities to investigate.

"Rios's death ... shows the worrying level of violence and intimidation that many journalists face in Mexico," their embassies said in a joint statement.

"We urge the Mexican authorities to use all available means to guarantee the protection of journalists."

Last year was the deadliest yet for journalists in Mexico, with 11 murders.

And this year could be on track to surpass it, with 10 killed so far. Most of them had been reporting on powerful drug cartels and government corruption.

More than 90 percent of journalists' murders in Mexico remain unpunished.

Veracruz, a state dogged by drug cartel wars, is particularly deadly: At least 20 journalists have been murdered here since 2010.

Rios was shot four times with high-powered weapons, and died on the way to the hospital from a bullet through his lung.

Blood stains and bullet casings could still be seen on Wednesday morning at the parking lot where the three victims fell.

Rios's family mourned him at their home, protected with barbed-wire fencing and metal bars.

Rios was well-known locally for his decadelong career at the newspaper Diario de Acayucan, where he reported on politics and government corruption.

Afp - Ap

(China Daily 08/25/2017 page11)