Prosecutors probe newspaper over mortuary image

Prosecutors in Venezuela said they were investigating a newspaper’s publication of a photograph on its front page depicting dead bodies in a Caracas mortuary.

The photograph in the newspaper El Nacional showed about a dozen bodies of men strewn about on examination tables in the mortuary.

The attorney general’s office said in a statement that it is on the case after a complaint by a student group aligned with President Hugo Chavez’s government.

Police chief Wilmer Flores also denounced the daily for publishing the image.

El Nacional’s editor, Miguel Henrique Otero, said the photograph – taken in December – was used in Friday’s newspaper to illustrate the fact that the mortuary is being overwhelmed due to rampant violence.