(RSF/IFEX) – In a letter to Attorney General Alfonso Gomez Méndez, RSF expressed its “great concern over the assassination of Carlos Restrepo, director of ‘Tangente’ daily, published in San Luis, in the department of Tolima (300 km south-east of Bogotá)”. The organisation asked the attorney general for “an extensive investigation which will shed light on […]
(RSF/IFEX) – In a letter to Attorney General Alfonso Gomez Méndez, RSF expressed its “great concern over the assassination of Carlos Restrepo, director of ‘Tangente’ daily, published in San Luis, in the department of Tolima (300 km south-east of Bogotá)”. The organisation asked the attorney general for “an extensive investigation which will shed light on the motives behind this murder and punish those responsible”. “This homicide occurred almost one year after the 16 September 1999 assassination of Guzman Quintero Torres,” noted Robert Ménard, RSF’s secretary-general. “RSF welcomes the fact that the two alleged authors of this later case were arrested, but at the same time our organisation asks you to do everything possible to ensure that a trial will soon be held, which would put an end to the impunity from which assassins of journalists in Colombia have benefitted”.
According to information obtained by RSF, Restrepo, forty-four years old, was found dead on the night of 9 to 10 September 2000, in the town of San Luis, in the department of Tolima. He had been shot a number of times. The police has stated that it has no knowledge of the motives or authors of the assassination.
Furthermore, RSF noted that Quintero Torres, editor-in-chief for “El Pilon” daily, published in Valledupar (in the north-eastern region of the country), was murdered in a bar on 16 September 1999 in the presence of two of his colleagues, by an unknown individual who fled the scene on a motorcycle with his accomplice. In his articles, the journalist had condemned the army for its human rights violations. In early July 2000, the office of the attorney general reported that Rodolfo Nelson Rosado Hernández and Jorge Eliécer Espinal Velásquez, two hired assassins of the paramilitary United Self Defense Groups (Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia, AUC) who had been arrested at the end of September 1999, had been accused of the journalist’s murder.
