Brazilian Reporter Shot Over Drug Gang Reports

By: A Brazilian reporter was shot and wounded in an attack meant to silence his writing about drug gangs, his newspaper said Thursday.

Amaury Ribeiro Jr., 44, was sitting at a bar on the outskirts of the nation's capital Wednesday afternoon when a young man shot him in the groin, the newspaper Correio Brasiliense reported.

The reporter's injuries were not life-threatening, the newspaper said.

"Traffickers are trying to silence the Correio with bullets. They won't succeed," a front-page article said, noting that the journalist two weeks ago began writing a series of articles about increased violence by drug gangs.

Police inspector Adriana Fernandez de Carvalho told the newspaper that a 16-year-old suspect was arrested for interrogation.

"There is no doubt [the attack] was because of Amaury's stories," the newspaper's editor in chief, Ana Dubeaux, told The Associated Press.