(WiPC/IFEX) – The WiPC of International PEN is aghast at the murder on 14 August 2005 of journalist Rony Adolfo Olivas Olivas and calls upon the authorities to conduct an immediate investigation to bring those responsible to justice. Olivas, 47, was killed in Estelí, 150 kilometres north of Managua. He was a correspondent for the […]
(WiPC/IFEX) – The WiPC of International PEN is aghast at the murder on 14 August 2005 of journalist Rony Adolfo Olivas Olivas and calls upon the authorities to conduct an immediate investigation to bring those responsible to justice.
Olivas, 47, was killed in Estelí, 150 kilometres north of Managua. He was a correspondent for the newspaper “La Prensa” and the president of the Estelí section of the Union of Nicaraguan Journalists (UPN). A taxi driver identified as Santos Roberto Osegueda Palacios, who gave himself up to the authorities on 18 August, allegedly shot Olivas in his taxi.
Olivas had received death threats on three occasions, immediately after a series of articles written for “La Prensa”, which alleged that there were links between wealthy people in Estelí and drug traffickers. It is believed that the murder may be related to these threats. On 12 August, the UPN had warned of the danger facing journalists in the country and of the increasing number of threats made against them. Olivas is the third journalist to be murdered in the last two years. In 2004, Carlos Guadamuz and Maria José Bravo were also killed (see IFEX alerts of 12 and 11 February 2004 on the Guadamuz case and 28 January 2005, 19 and 10 November 2004 on the Bravo case).
International PEN calls upon the Nicaraguan authorities to bring all of those involved with the killing of the journalist to justice.
