(IFJ/IFEX) – On Monday, 12 April 1999, the Chief Ad-Hoc Public Prosecutor, Julia Eguia Davalos, stated that the Public Ministry’s Executive Committee had given her the file on the kidnapping of journalist Pedro Yauri Bustamante. When she reviewed the file, Eguia realised that the disappearance had not been investigated. The kidnapping occurred in the early […]
(IFJ/IFEX) – On Monday, 12 April 1999, the Chief Ad-Hoc Public Prosecutor,
Julia Eguia Davalos, stated that the Public Ministry’s Executive Committee
had given her the file on the kidnapping of journalist Pedro Yauri
Bustamante. When she reviewed the file, Eguia realised that the
disappearance had not been investigated. The kidnapping occurred in the
early hours of the morning on 24 June 1992 in the city of Huacho. Yauri was
the director of the “Punto Final” radio programme on Radio Universal in
Huaura, and had criticised police excesses on the air.
**Updates IFEX alert of 12 June 1995**
Furthermore, because Yauri was presumed to have been kidnapped by
paramilitary members of the well known “Grupo Colina”, Eguia submitted a
report to the Public Ministry’s Executive Committee, suggesting that the
inquiry be reopened. In her report, Eguia noted attorney Saul Montes Vega’s
behaviour and proposed that another prosecutor be assigned to the case. She
added that her request had been accepted.
Eguia’s statements were made in response to comments by journalists that she
had been paralysed when dealing with cases that put the government in a
compromising position.
Yauri’s disappearance was denounced by his father Anastacio Yauri, who had
reported that about fifteen armed persons, wearing hoods and comando-type
military uniforms, broke into the house and carried the journalist away,
without giving any explanation or paying any attention to his protests.
Other individuals who witnessed the event, that occurred in the house
located in Huacho’s main square, pointed out that the hooded persons hit the
journalist, tied him up and covered his face with a sweater, before fleeing
in a mustard coloured truck. Before leaving, the kidnappers left a hand
grenade and fifty gun cartridges in the journalists’ house, apparently
trying to implicate him in terrorist activities.
More than thirty days after the kidnapping, the Public Ministry appointed
attorney José Nunez Ernau to carry out the investigation, which ended with
no clear results. Later on, prosecutor Fiscal Saul Montes Vega was assigned
to the case, but he also failed to solve the case.
Recommended Action
Send appeals to authorities:
Executive Committee are put in motion, taking into account background
information on military kidnappings and other criminal acts thought to have
been carried out by paramilitary members of the “Grupo Colina”
Appeals To
Miguel Aljovin Swayne
Attorney General
Lima, Peru
Fax: +51 14 262 474Blanca Nelida Colan Maguino
Executive President
Public Ministry
Fax: +51 14 268 996Jorge Santistevan de Noriega
Ombudsman
Lima, Peru
Fax: +51 14 267 800Julia Eguia Davalos
Ad-Hoc Public Prosecutor
Fax: +51 14 284 349
Please copy appeals to the source if possible.
