The criminal investigation of Peru’s Minister of the Interior for the death of a journalist in 1988 serves as a reminder that the Andean nation still lives and deals with the effects of an internal war that ravaged the country in the late twentieth century.
Whether retired General Daniel Urresti, who President Ollanta Humala named Minister of the Interior in June of this year, will face trial for the 1988 murder of journalist Hugo Bustíos hinges on the decision of the chief prosecutor in Lima.
Bustíos worked for the influential news magazine Caretas as a correspondent in Huanta, a province in the Ayacucho region of Peru that served as a hotbed for political violence at the time.
On November 24, 1988, Army members shot the 38-year-old Bustíos and placed an explosive device on his body in alleged retaliation for a photo he took of a commander accused of disappearing 60 people, according to El Comercio. Army members also shot fellow journalist Eduardo Rojas Arce, but he managed to escape.
In 2013, an Ayacucho judge opened criminal proceedings into Urresti’s role in the killing. At the time of Bustíos' death, the minister served as an Army captain and intelligence chief in that part of the country.
The current criminal investigation of Urresti is the product of a long line of investigations into Bustíos’ death. After a military court dropped an initial investigation, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) ruled in 1997 that the Peruvian State was responsible for Bustíos’ killing, according to the Center for Justice and International Law (CEJIL). A Peruvian court further investigated the case and found two military officers guilty for their roles in the killing.
Humala appointed Urresti to his current post in late June; in early July, he defended Urresti’s right to a presumption of innocence and vowed to resist distractions in the fight against national insecurity. Urresti serves as the sixth Minister of the Interior under Humala.
Critics ask why the president appointed Urresti to the post of Minister of the Interior while knowing about the investigation and organizations like the CEJIL, the Washington Office on Latin America and the Due Process of Law Foundation called for Urresti’s removal.
Editorial writer and former Minister of the Interior Fernando Rospigliosi questions the judiciary on whether Urresti might use his power as minister to “intimidate, blackmail, extort or buy witnesses, prosecutors and judges.” The two are currently involved in a public war of words.
A prosecutor in Lima will decide whether or not the case goes to trial. According to Caretas, the prosecutor, Luis Landa, said that Urresti declared in 2013 that he learned of Bustío’s killing the following day and had not left quarters.
In an interview with Somos, Urresti said that after Grupo Colina, the whole world associates the intelligence official with the assassin. “And who was the best person to smear? Me, because I was number 2 of intelligence in this zone,” he said. Grupo Colina, a clandestine squad of the intelligence service, carried out extrajudicial murders during the fight against terrorism.
Guerrilla forces, mainly the Maoist group Shining Path, and state security forces engaged in armed conflict from 1980 to 2000. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission estimated that about 70,000 people died during this time.
Both state and nonstate forces occasionally targeted journalists during the internal conflict.
Urresti would not be the first government official to face trial for abuses against journalists during this time. Peruvian courts have prosecuted high-ranking government and military officials who served during the time of the internal conflict.
Members of Grupo Colina, as well as Vladimiro Montesinos, advisor and de facto intelligence chief, were sentenced to prison for various crimes including the death of journalist Pedro Yauri. (The Supreme Court later reduced many of their sentences, drawing criticism from human rights and press freedom organizations). In one of the most high-profile cases to be tried since the end of the conflict, a court sentenced Fujimori to prison in part for his role in the kidnapping and detention of journalist Gustavo Gorriti.
Note from the editor: This story was originally published by the Knight Center’s blog Journalism in the Americas, the predecessor of LatAm Journalism Review.
