(FLIP/IFEX) – On 1 December 2004, Luis Arley Ortiz Orozco, alias “Pereque”, was captured by Technical Investigations Unit officers from the Sogamoso Municipality Public Prosecutor’s Office, located in Boyacá department. Ortiz Orozco was wanted in connection with the murder of “La Patria” newspaper deputy editor Orlando Sierra. The arrest could shed light on those behind […]
(FLIP/IFEX) – On 1 December 2004, Luis Arley Ortiz Orozco, alias “Pereque”, was captured by Technical Investigations Unit officers from the Sogamoso Municipality Public Prosecutor’s Office, located in Boyacá department. Ortiz Orozco was wanted in connection with the murder of “La Patria” newspaper deputy editor Orlando Sierra.
The arrest could shed light on those behind the murder, since Ortiz Orozco is considered to have been an intermediary between the assassins and Francisco Antonio Quintero Tabares, alias “Tilín”, who is presumed to be the head of a gang of hitmen in Manizales. Quintero Tabares is currently in prison.
On 15 May 2002, the Attorney General’s Office issued an “order for preventive detention” (medida de aseguramiento) against Ortiz Orozco.
Ortiz Orozco was first arrested on 30 January 2002, the day on which Sierra was assassinated. He was freed eight days later, however, for lack of evidence against him. Luis Fernando Soto Zapata was also captured and sentenced to 19 years and six months in prison for killing Sierra.
In the weeks after the assassination, the Manizales Project, a coalition of local and national media outlets that conducted investigations into Sierra’s murder, determined that corrupt local politicians were linked to the crime.
FLIP calls on the Attorney General’s Office to step up the investigation following Ortiz Orozco’s capture in order to bring those behind Sierra’s murder to justice.
