(IAPA/IFEX) – The following is a 21 June 2002 IAPA press release: IAPA submits case of murdered Colombian journalist to Inter-American Commission on Human Rights Also provides new information on three other murders WASHINGTON, D.C. (June 21, 2002) – The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) today submitted to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) […]
(IAPA/IFEX) – The following is a 21 June 2002 IAPA press release:
IAPA submits case of murdered Colombian journalist to Inter-American Commission on Human Rights
Also provides new information on three other murders
WASHINGTON, D.C. (June 21, 2002) – The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) today submitted to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) the findings of its investigation into the murder of a Colombian journalist, in which it turned up serious irregularities in the legal proceedings and the need for a thorough review of the case.
IAPA President Robert J. Cox, within the framework of the Hemispheric Summit on Justice and Press Freedom which winds up here tomorrow (Saturday), submitted to IACHR Executive Secretary Santiago Canton the case file on Nelson Carvajal Carvajal, murdered in Colombia on April 16, 1998, based on on-the-spot inquiries conducted by the IAPA’s Rapid Response Unit, in which shortcomings were found in the official investigation and subsequent legal proceedings.
Carvajal was editor of the local newscast “Momento Regional”, broadcast in the current affairs programs “Mirador de la Semana”, “Amanecer” and “Tribuna Médica” by Radio Sur radio station in Ptalito, Huila province, 307 miles from the Colombian capital, Bogotá. He was also the founder of a school, of which he was the principal at the time of his death.
Carvajal, who was well known for his exposure of alleged wrongdoing by local officials, was shot seven times by an assailant who fled on motorcycle. A court acquitted three defendants accused of masterminding or actually carrying out his murder. However, the IAPA uncovered aspects of the case that were mishandled.
The IAPA said in its submission to the IACHR that there had been a violation of the American Convention on Human Rights’ Article 4 regarding the right to life, Articles 8 and 25 on the right to have justice prevail and Article 13 on the right to freedom of expression.
The organization added that the Carvajal case was riddled with irregularities, among them the fact that the official investigation was handled one after another by a total of four different prosecutors, which considerably slowed it down; inquiries that were supposed to be made in private were done publicly, putting witnesses at risk and discouraging others from coming forward; statements by eye-witnesses were discredited; not all leads and theories were followed up, and an investigator and a number of witnesses were threatened.
Cox, assistant editor of The Post and Courier, Charleston, South Carolina, declared that “from 1997 to date the IAPA has submitted to the IACHR a total of 16 murder cases investigated by the organization, many of which remain unpunished due to the lack of political will and indifference on the part of governments to investigate and solve these crimes.”
He added that along with its findings in the Carvajal case, the IAPA had provided new information on the murders of three other Colombian journalists, Carlos Lajud Catalán, Gerardo Bedoya and Jairo Elías Márquez, as a follow-up to its previous presentations on them to the IACHR and to
show that there were further irregularities that were causing the perpetrators to continue to go unpunished.
Other cases that the IAPA has submitted to the IACHR or on which it has provided information are those of Manoel Leal de Oliveira, Aristeu Guida da Silva, Zaqueu de Oliveira, Edgar Lopes de Faria and Ronaldo Santana de Araújo of Brazil; Jorge Carpio Nicolle and Irma Flaquer of Guatemala; Guillermo Cano and Hernando Rangel of Colombia, and Héctor Félix Miranda,
Benjamín Flores Morales and Víctor Manuel Oropeza of Mexico.
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