(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has voiced concern about the stalled investigation into the murder of journalist and municipal councillor Mauro Marcano, who was gunned down on 1 September 2004 in Maturín (in the northeastern state of Monagas). “An air of impunity hangs over this murder case, which could implicate senior police and military officers whose ties […]
(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has voiced concern about the stalled investigation into the murder of journalist and municipal councillor Mauro Marcano, who was gunned down on 1 September 2004 in Maturín (in the northeastern state of Monagas).
“An air of impunity hangs over this murder case, which could implicate senior police and military officers whose ties to drug trafficking had been exposed by Marcano,” the organisation said.
“Why have judicial investigators not summoned anyone for questioning, as the theory of an isolated act is scarcely credible,” RSF said, adding: “The investigation has come to a complete halt, and we therefore call on the competent authorities to revive it at once.”
The host of a programme on local Radio Maturín 1080 AM and a columnist for the local daily newspaper “El Oriental”, Marcano was shot by two gunmen as he left his home in Maturín. In his last column, published the previous day, he reported on the disappearance of several kilos of cocaine after they were seized by the police.
Speaking openly on 26 April 2005, his family said he had felt under threat prior to his murder. He had just investigated and reported on the activities of a cartel of Colombian origin that controlled drug trafficking on Venezuela’s Atlantic coast. He had also accused a number of Venezuelan police and army officers of colluding with the cartel.
According to Marcano’s family, two weeks before his death he had met with Vice-President José Vicente Rangel (himself a former journalist) and told him he feared be could be murdered. He also reportedly gave Rangel the names of the officers he suspected of abetting the drug cartel – the commander of the National Guard’s 7th region, Alexis Maneiro Gómez, Col. Juan Fabricio Tirry of the Defence Ministry, and former Monagas police chief José Manuel del Moral.
His family said none of the three has even been questioned by investigators. “Prosecutor Alejandro Castillo has taken no initiative during the past four months,” Marcano’s sister, Niurka Marcano, was quoted by the daily “El Universal” as saying on 27 April.
Only one suspect has been arrested, an individual nicknamed Freddy Caracas, but he was murdered in prison in December 2004. Another suspect, Tony Canaves, who has prior arrests for drug trafficking, has not been questioned or arrested “because he is an associate of the governor of Monagas,” Niurka Marcano said.
A Supreme Court official reached by RSF did not dispute what the family said. “The family should file a petition with the court for the investigation to be relaunched. It is true it is at a standstill,” said the source, who also reaffirmed the need for the restructuring of the judicial system that is currently under way.
Meanwhile, on 2 May 2005, Judicial Commission President Luis Velázquez Alvaray announced that 16 judges were being suspended on suspicion of colluding with drug traffickers or for releasing drug traffickers in the northwestern state of Lara. The restructuring could soon affect other states.