By IANS/EFE,
Tegucigalpa : A Honduran court Tuesday sentenced a man to 28 years in jail after finding him guilty of having fatally shot journalist Jorge Alberto Orellana in April 2010 during the course of a robbery.
Jonathan Joseph Cockborn was sentenced to 17 years and eight months in prison for the crime of homicide and an additional 10 years and four months for robbery, the spokesman for the prosecutor’s office in the northern city of San Pedro Sula, Elvin Guzman, told reporters.
Orellana, a radio journalist and university professor, was “slain to rob him of a telephone” and not for practicing his profession, Guzman said.
This is the first time a Honduran court has sentenced anyone for killing a journalist.
Since 2003 to date, 33 people associated with the media have been murdered in Honduras and all of those crimes remain unpunished, according to the state Human Rights Commission.