(IPYS/IFEX) – The Attorney General’s Office has laid charges against Luis Arley Ortiz Orozco, also known as “Pereque”, and Francisco Antonio Quintero Tabares, also known as Luis Miguel Tabares Hernández or “Tilín”, for the murder of Orlando Sierra, assistant editor of “La Patria” newspaper. Sierra died on 1 February 2002, two days after he was […]
(IPYS/IFEX) – The Attorney General’s Office has laid charges against Luis Arley Ortiz Orozco, also known as “Pereque”, and Francisco Antonio Quintero Tabares, also known as Luis Miguel Tabares Hernández or “Tilín”, for the murder of Orlando Sierra, assistant editor of “La Patria” newspaper. Sierra died on 1 February 2002, two days after he was shot in Manizales, Caldas department, central Colombia.
The charges come two months after the Attorney General’s Office partially closed the investigation into the journalist’s death, a move that prompted prosecuting lawyer Ariel Ortiz Correa’s resignation. In his letter of resignation the attorney, who had taken on the case pro bono, stated that, “Whoever ordered Orlando Sierra’s murder has nothing to fear now from the courts . . . This investigation has lost its way and has been a complete failure.”
In statements made to the press, Ortiz Correa said the Attorney General’s Office had done “little or nothing” to identify those behind the crime. The case had become just another file in the Bogotá public prosecutor’s archives, he added.
Sierra, 41, was gunned down on the newspaper’s steps by Luis Fernando Soto Zapata. Soto Zapata was arrested minutes later carrying the murder weapon. Given the wealth of evidence against him -eye witness testimony, forensic evidence, a security camera that caught the murder on tape – Soto Zapata confessed to the crime, but insisted he had mistaken Sierra for another person.
A judge sentenced him to 19-and-a half years in prison for aggravated homicide and carrying a weapon illegally. The sentence could be reduced for good behaviour.
Independent investigations by journalists have linked members of the local political class to the crime and even reported the death of witnesses. The motive for Sierra’s murder was apparently connected to the opinion pieces he wrote in his column “Meeting Point” (“Punto de Encuentro”), and to his allegation of corruption in Caldas department and the region.
