crime

Murder suspect charged

Police are looking for 3 other suspects in Tuesday’s stabbing death of a photographer.

Police have charged Edwin Cournei with the murder of an El Siglo photographer Eliécer Santamaría and are looking for three other suspects. One of them is apparently a teenager.

Santamaría was stabbed to death near a Río Abajo restaurant Tuesday morning.

Police think the killers were trying to rob the photographer.

The journalist was buried yesterday in the Colinas de la Paz cemetary in Arraiján. He was interred with his camera.

The service was attended by journalists as well as members of the taxi union that Santamaría belonged to.

The president of the Colegio Nacional de Periodistas, Jean Marcel Chéry, asked the government to address the growing crime problem.

"The government made a campaign promise to increase security, and so far that has not happened," Marcel Chéry said.

Santamaría started his journalism career at El Matutino, and also worked for La Estrella before going to El Siglo. He is the first journalist to be a killed while on the job in almost 20 years. Before the stabbing, he had been working on a story about a possible gang-related shooting.

Santamaría’s murder was widely criticized by the country’s journalism organizations, who called upon the government to crack down on violent crime.