(PROBIDAD/IFEX) – On 11 January 2005, attorney Siomara Benítez Molina filed a defamation complaint against journalist Carlos Ismael Galeas, head of news programming for San Miguel radio station, based in Marcala, La Paz department. Galeas must appear before a Comayagua court on 18 February to respond to the accusations or otherwise face trial. Benítez claims […]
(PROBIDAD/IFEX) – On 11 January 2005, attorney Siomara Benítez Molina filed a defamation complaint against journalist Carlos Ismael Galeas, head of news programming for San Miguel radio station, based in Marcala, La Paz department. Galeas must appear before a Comayagua court on 18 February to respond to the accusations or otherwise face trial.
Benítez claims that Galeas defamed her by reporting that she was implicated in a coffee smuggling operation. The journalist denies the accusation. Galeas was only made aware of the complaint when the Committee for Free Expression (Comité por la Libre Expresión, C-Libre) informed him of the attorney’s legal action on 7 February.Benítez told C-Libre that she filed the complaint in Comayagua because Galeas has maligned her by “accusing [her] of a crime [she had] nothing to do with and speaking without having all the facts.”
In December 2004, Galeas aired a statement by police officer José Santos Alvarado Corrales, who claimed that he and eight other officers had investigated a coffee smuggling operation in Marcala and across the border to El Salvador. The police officers reportedly discovered that high-ranking Honduran officers, including one Pedro Pereira, were implicated in the smuggling ring. Pereira is in charge of the Pasamonos customs office, on the border with El Salvador, and is Benítez’s husband. According to Benítez, in subsequent reports Galeas insinuated that she was also implicated in the smuggling operation.
Galeas told C-Libre that at no point did he suggest that Benítez was involved in the coffee smuggling operation. “What we did was call on the authorities to investigate the police officers’ accusations,” the journalist explained.
This alert has been prepared by PROBIDAD with information provided by C-Libre.
