Journalists Killed in 2017 - Motive Unconfirmed: Carlos Oveniel Lara Domínguez

Canal 12 Telemaya | Killed in Unknown, Honduras | October 23, 2017

At least one unidentified person shot television reporter and cameraperson Carlos Oveniel Lara Domínguez outside his home in the city of La Entrada in western Honduras on October 23, 2017, according to news reports.

Lara, 23, worked as a reporter and camera operator for Canal 12 Telemaya, a local TV station in the Honduran province of Copán on the border with Guatemala.

According to the news reports, at least one person drove up to Lara's home, got out of the car, shot the journalist, took his cellphone, and drove away around 6 a.m. CPJ was unable to determine how many people were involved in the shooting.

Lara died at the scene, according to a video released by Canal 12 Telemaya.

El País wrote that witnesses reported seeing a vehicle that looked similar to the shooter's vehicle in Lara's neighborhood the day before the journalist was murdered.

Canal 12 Telemaya's news director, Carlos Chinchilla, said in an interview on the HRN radio station that Lara had worked in media for eight years, and began working at Canal 12 three years before he was killed.

Chinchilla said Lara had reported receiving death threats via phone a few months earlier from an unidentified man, according to the news site El Nuevo Diario. The site did not give further details about the nature of the threats.

Lara's brother and Canal 12 did not return CPJ's repeated requests for comment.

In the days immediately following the murder, Honduran police did not comment publicly on the case or identify any lines of investigation.

The national attorney general's office did not respond to CPJ's emailed request for comment.

Motive Unconfirmed: CPJ is investigating to determine whether the death was work-related.