A Guatemalan TV journalist and his wife were murdered by gunmen who shot them as they rode a motorbike, police said Sunday. Hamilton Hernandez, a presenter with a local cable station, was riding with his spouse Herlina Gonzalez through a forested area near the town of Coatepeque, south-west of the capital, when they were attacked.
The motives of the killings were not known, a police spokesman, Jorge Aguilar, told AFP. A non-governmental organisation, Centro Civitas, said it was the ninth murder of a journalist in Guatemala this year. It called 2016 a "terrible year" for the profession in the country. Last year, the group counted four journalists' murders.
Much of the violence in Guatemala has been blamed on a conflict between gangs and drug cartels that carry out murders, extortion and drug trafficking.