(FLIP/IFEX) – The Prosecutor General’s Office, with support from the national police’s Criminal Intelligence Investigations Unit (Seccional de Inteligencia Judicial Investigativa de la Policía Nacional, SIJÍN) in Córdoba, has captured three of the alleged murderers of journalist Gustavo Rojas Gabalo. According the Córdoba police commander, Colonel Jaime Orlando Velasco, two of them are demobilized members […]
(FLIP/IFEX) – The Prosecutor General’s Office, with support from the national police’s Criminal Intelligence Investigations Unit (Seccional de Inteligencia Judicial Investigativa de la Policía Nacional, SIJÍN) in Córdoba, has captured three of the alleged murderers of journalist Gustavo Rojas Gabalo. According the Córdoba police commander, Colonel Jaime Orlando Velasco, two of them are demobilized members of paramilitary groups.
According to the SIJÍN, one of the captured suspects, who apparently shot the journalist, was identified as Ramiro Antonio Berrío Beltrán, known as “El Guajiro”. The second is José Manuel Pérez Jiménez, alias “El Pambe”, for whom there were already four arrest orders, three of them for homicide. The third man captured is Santiago Luna Primera, known as “El Negro”. The authorities say a fourth man was also involved and is still at large.
Witnesses to the crime stated that on 4 February 2006, “El Guajiro” approached the radio announcer and, after arguing with him for a few minutes, took out a gun and shot him twice. He then fled on a motorcycle driven by another man, and joined two others, fleeing down the road to the Guateque rural division. At the press conference,when the captured men were displayed to the press, Berrío claimed he was innocent.
Erly Rojas, daughter of the murdered journalist, commented “there are a lot of questions about the people captured, because although there were many outstanding charges against them, they were free until last weekend.” She added that one of the men captured was in Santafé de Ralito, the town in which the government has been carrying out the demilitarization process with paramilitary groups.
Colonel Velasco told FLIP that the police have reconstructed the crime with the help of witnesses and evidence gathered during visits to places near the scene of the crime.
