(IAPA/IFEX) – The following is a 26 July 2006 IAPA press release: IAPA calls for investigation into journalist’s murder in Brazil Questions ruling in Peru Miami (26 July 2006) – IAPA was saddened to learn of the murder in Brazil of newspaper businessman Manoel Paulino da Silva, and asks the authorities to conduct a prompt […]
(IAPA/IFEX) – The following is a 26 July 2006 IAPA press release:
IAPA calls for investigation into journalist’s murder in Brazil
Questions ruling in Peru
Miami (26 July 2006) – IAPA was saddened to learn of the murder in Brazil of newspaper businessman Manoel Paulino da Silva, and asks the authorities to conduct a prompt investigation to identify those responsible.
Da Silva, founder and owner of “Hoje Jornal” newspaper, published in São Bernardo do Campo, a city in São Paulo state, was murdered on 20 July 2006 while on the way to the newspaper. Lawyer Camila Francisco, travelling in Da Silva’s vehicle, was also murdered, when individuals shot at them from another vehicle.
Although it is not known if the crime was related to Da Silva’s work, Gonzalo Marroquín, chairman of IAPA’s Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information, said “for that reason, the case must be thoroughly investigated to clarify the motives for the murder and bring those responsible to justice.”
IAPA’s Rapid Response Unit (RRU) in Brazil consulted the newspaper’s directors, who said that Da Silva had not received any threats nor had he published information that might have motivated the murders. The head of the police investigation, Rubens Eduardo Barazal Teixeira, told the RRU that thus far no hypothesis for the murder has been discarded.
Peru
Marroquín, director of Guatemala’s “Prensa Libre” newspaper, said that IAPA shares the concern of the Peruvian Press Council (Consejo de la Prensa Peruana, CPP) regarding the absolution of both the alleged mastermind and the perpetrators of the murder of radio journalist Antonio de la Torre.
The CPP described as questionable the ruling of the First Transitory Criminal Bench of the Supreme Court (Primera Sala Penal Transitoria de la Corte Suprema de Justicia) which absolved Yungay mayor Amaro León León, said to be the murder’s mastermind, and Antonio Torre Camones and Pedro Angeles Figueroa, who had all been found guilty and sentenced to 17 years in prison by the Ancash Superior Court in December 2005. A higher court (Primera Fiscalía Suprema Penal) had requested that that sentence be increased to 20 years.
The court’s decision also absolved of complicity in the murder the mayor’s daughter, Emma León, and David Julia Castillo, her boyfriend, who are currently both fugitives from the justice system.
De la Torre, murdered on 14 February 2004, hosted a news programme on Radio Orbita, in which he had criticised municipal officials’ administration of Yungay, a city 350 kilometres north of Lima. The journalist had received continuous death threats and there had been an attempt on his life, involving an attack with explosives on his home.
The CPP has urged the “judicial authorities belonging to the National Council of the Judiciary (Consejo Nacional de la Magistratura) and the Office Supervising the Judiciary (Oficina de Control de la Magistratura) to carry out a thorough investigation of this very polemical ruling.”
