THE INTER American Press Association (IAPA) has hailed as a model to imitate the decision by Nicaraguan officials to vigorously investigate the murder of a journalist and to promptly bring the principal suspect to trial for sentencing.
"We are delighted that the authorities pursued the investigation and we also welcome how quickly trial was put under way of the principal accused in the murder last November of Maria José Bravo," Gonzalo Marroquin, chairman of the IAPA's Commit-tee on Freedom of the Press and information, said recently. "This is an example to follow in other countries where murders of journalists have remained unsolved and unpunished for more than two decades."
25 YEARS IMPRISONMENT
Bravo, 26, a reporter for the newspaper La Prensa, was killed on November 9, 2004, as he was covering a protest against the results of municipal elections in Juigalpa, the capital of Chontales province, 100 miles north-east of the Nicaraguan capital, Managua. Former Mayor Eugenio Hernan-dez Gonzalez was found guilty of the murder and sentenced to 25 years imprisonment.
Marroquin, editor of the Guat-emala City, Guatemala daily Prensa Libre, declared that "the solidarity, accusation and insistence of the Nicaraguan colleagues, the support of international press organisations that called for justice, and, mainly, the determination of the local courts to solve the crime prevented this murder joining the long list of unpunished crimes in the Western Hemisphere."
In a separate statement, Marroquin called attention to Colombia, where Hernan Echeverri, a news photographer and part owner of the newspaper Uraba Hoy, was kidnapped on January 22, apparently by militants of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) left-wing guerrilla movement, while he was driving to Medellin, capital of Antioquia province, in north-western Colombia.
"We demand that Echeverri's personal safety be respected and that he be freed immediately," Marroquin declared. He said that according to inquiries made by the IAPA's Rapid Response Unit in Colombia, Echeverri, 64, had not received any threats prior to his abduction.
