(IAPA/IFEX) – The following is a 13 September 2002 IAPA press release: IAPA requests an answer in journalist’s murder case Third anniversary of Guzmán Quintero Torres’ assassination Miami (13 September 2002) – On the third anniversary of Colombian journalist Guzmán Quintero Torres’s assassination, IAPA asked the Valledupar High Court for an answer regarding an appeal […]
(IAPA/IFEX) – The following is a 13 September 2002 IAPA press release:
IAPA requests an answer in journalist’s murder case
Third anniversary of Guzmán Quintero Torres’ assassination
Miami (13 September 2002) – On the third anniversary of Colombian journalist Guzmán Quintero Torres’s assassination, IAPA asked the Valledupar High Court for an answer regarding an appeal lodged at the beginning of the year against the acquittal of the two accused of the assassination, which occurred on 16 September 1999.
In a letter to Valledupar High Court Judge Ramiro Larrazabal, the chairman of the IAPA’s Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information, Rafael Molina of the Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic magazine Ahora, requested information about the appeal process in the Quintero Torres murder case.
Quintero Torres was the editor of El Pilon, in Valledupar, Cesar Department. In his writings, he condemned the excesses of the military, the paramilitaries and corruption. He was assassinated on 16 September 1999 when a man walked into a pub where Torres was sitting with colleagues and shot him four times.
In January 2002, the Valledupar specialised criminal court handed down a “not guilty” verdict in the case of Jorge Eliécer Espinel Velásquez and Rodolfo Nelson Posada Hernández, both accused of shooting Quintero Torres. The Public Prosecutor’s Office filed an appeal immediately afterwards, but eight months later it is still waiting for a reply.
According to IAPA’s statistics, Quintero Torres’s murder and that of most of the other 111 journalists murdered in Colombia since 1988 remain unsolved.
