Radio journalist murdered

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(CPJ/IFEX) - CPJ has expressed its profound indignation about the 21 October 1999 brutal murder of radio journalist Rodolfo Julio Torres, in the town of San Onofre, Sucre Department. CPJ has urged President Andrés Pastrana Arango in the strongest possible terms to launch an exhaustive investigation into this lethal attack on press freedom, the third to have taken place in Colombia in less than three months.

In the early hours of 21 October, five individuals arrived at Torres' home. They drove the 38-year-old journalist to the outskirts of town. After shooting him six times, they left him dead by the side of the road.

Torres worked for the Cartagena radio station Fuente. He also worked as the press secretary for a recently elected mayor. He was formerly a correspondent with Radio Caracolí in Sincelejo, the capital of Sucre Department, and with the Sincelejo daily "Meridiano".

Torres' colleagues are convinced he was assassinated in reprisal for his outspoken reporting. He covered cock fights, known as major gambling venues, as well as general politics. One year ago, a series of anonymously distributed pamphlets accused him of being affiliated with leftist guerrillas of the National Liberation Army (ELN). The pamphlets were believed to have come from the Self Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), a coalition of extreme right-wing paramilitary groups.

This is not the first time CPJ has documented the killing of a journalist in reprisal for his work in the violence-ridden Sucre Department. On 8 November 1997, radio journalist Francisco Castro Menco, who had often called for an end to political violence in the region, was fatally shot in his home by unidentified killers.

Distributed by the International Freedom of Expression Exchange (IFEX) Clearing House