Matías Avelino Castro of the Dominican Republic, alleged mastermind behind the murder of Dominican journalist José Agustín Silvestre in 2011, was arrested on April 3 in Bogotá, Colombia, reported Colonel Juan Carlos Gómez, chief of Interpol Colombia, according to AFP.
Once more, Colombian authorities are investigating threats against journalists and social leaders distributed via pamphlets and signed with the name of a criminal group.
UPDATE (3/21/16): A former Colombian paramilitary fighter accused in the May 2000 kidnap, torture and rape of journalist Jineth Bedoya Lima has been sentenced to 28 years in prison. Mario Jaimes Mejía, known as 'El Panadero,' accepted charges against him on Feb. 2. He was sentenced on March 18.
Almost 17 years after the murder of Colombian journalist and humorist Jaime Garzón, one of the country’s head prosecutors finally identified the killing as a crime of the state due to the participation of members of the Army and the defunct department of intelligence (known as DAS) along with a criminal organization.
For El Espectador’s 129th anniversary and in anticipation of the signing of a long-anticipated peace accord between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the Colombian newspaper is asking readers whom they will forgive.
The first group of fellows for the Adelante initiative from the International Women’s Media Foundation (IWMF) have been selected and are preparing for trips to Colombia and the Mexico-U.S. border.
The Colombian media may have never talked so much about peace as they did in 2015, when the government and the FARC guerrilla advanced in negotitions to end the armed conflict of more than 50 years. However, this has not translated into decreased attakcs on the press in the country.
In an editorial published on Jan. 21, the newspaper El Colombiano, one of the most important and traditional publications in the country, acknowledged a case of plagiarism by the international editor, Diana Carolina Jiménez, and said that after reviewing the case, the journalist is not longer part of the team.
A Colombian court has sentenced a man to prison for the August 2014 killing of journalist Luis Carlos Cervantes in Tarazá, Antioquia department.
Deadly violence against journalists in Latin America has continued to grow this year, with four countries from the region making the Committee to Protect Journalists' (CPJ) list of deadliest countries for journalists in 2015.
Six years after the 'chuzadas', or illegal wiretapping, of journalists in Colombia scandalized the country, their ghosts reappeared. In recent weeks, information about alleged corruption and abuse within the National Police has been revealed, including the monitoring and unlawful interception of journalists’ communications.
As the end of the year nears, two more journalists were killed in Brazil and Colombia in the past week.