(FLIP/IFEX) – The following is a 6 September 2005 FLIP press release: The Foundation for Press Freedom laments the assassination of Guillermo Cabrera Medina, president of the Valle del Cauca Journalists’ Association. The exact circumstances of his murder are still unclear and are under investigation. The journalist was reported missing on 5 September. His family […]
(FLIP/IFEX) – The following is a 6 September 2005 FLIP press release:
The Foundation for Press Freedom laments the assassination of Guillermo Cabrera Medina, president of the Valle del Cauca Journalists’ Association. The exact circumstances of his murder are still unclear and are under investigation.
The journalist was reported missing on 5 September. His family members told the local press that they had last spoken to Cabrera at a family gathering on the night of 3 September and into the early morning hours the next day. They did not see him again until 6 September, when they identified his body at the Cali University Hospital.
Cabrera was stabbed in the throat and chest, according to medical reports. Cali Police Chief Colonel Jesús Antonio Gómez Méndez reported that the journalist’s body was found on 4 September in La Independencia neighbourhood in western Cali. He was initially listed as an “unidentified person.”
FLIP is investigating possible motives for the murder. So far, the only hypothesis is that Cabrera was killed by an individual or individuals who wanted to rob the van he was driving. The van had been given some years back to the Valle del Cauca Journalists’ Association. It has not been found.
Cabrera was 53 years old and a well-respected journalist in Valle del Cauca. He co-founded a number of media outlets in Pradera, where he was born, and in Cali, where he worked in recent years.
FLIP calls on the authorities to investigate the circumstances surrounding Cabrera’s death. FLIP will continue its own investigations to ascertain whether the murder was connected to his profession as a journalist.
