Venezuelan newspaper says executive's killing due to reporting

The murder of a Caracas newspaper executive last week may have been related to the paper's reporting on drug trafficking and money laundering, a lawyer for the paper said Monday. Pierre Gerges, vice president of Reporte Diario de la Economia, was driving his brother's car last Monday evening when two unidentified gunmen on a motorcycle shot him at least 12 times, local media reported. Yisel Soares, a lawyer for the business newspaper, said the paper's investigation suggests one of two groups that Reporte had been working to expose is behind the murder: Bankers helping to launder drug money, or a powerful group in the northern city of Valencia who have created a 'state within a state.' She gave no other details, but suggested the second group has been linked to other assassinations. Venezuelan investigative police are exploring similar lines of inquiry in a separate probe, she said. They could not be reached for comment late Monday, but Justice Minister Ramon Rodriguez Chacin said earlier that investigators would soon present their results."