20 Years Without Justice is not Oblivion

Fabio Restrepo, María Helena Salinas and John Jairo Restrepo were killed in 2000. All three were journalists. This year, their cases have time-barred, will cease to be investigated and the guilty cannot be convicted. In this article we explain more about the lapsing of sentence for homicide offenses to journalists. 

The lapsing of a case is due to the fact that, by constitutional mandate, a time limit must be established for someone to be tried for a crime. This duration is calculated by considering the maximum penalty that the perpetrator could face. For example, in the case of homicides case are time-barred after 20 years, since that is the time at which a person responsible for murder could be sentenced.

In February and March of this year, the time limit to sentence those responsible for the murders of journalists Fabio Restrepo (Santander Department), John Jairo Restrepo (Santander Department) and María Salinas (Antioquia Department) were reached. In the first two cases, the EPL guerrilla is presumed to be responsible, and so is ELN in the case of Salinas. These are the few data on their cases, because the investigation was suspended in the Prosecutor's Office, and there was no further information, even before the date of the lapsing of sentence, as confirmed by Angela Caro, legal advisor of the Foundation for Press Freedom (FLIP).

For Caro, there are several errors on the part of the Prosecutor's Office that cause investigations to fail and, over time, many cases are time-barred. One of those mistakes, is that prosecutors are unaware of the journalistic activity that people were exercising before they were killed. The case of Jaime Garzón is an example of this, explains Caro, as the Prosecutor's Office has always claimed that his profession was being a lawyer and his murder was not related to the fact that he was a journalist.

Caro adds that there are no staff who are fully trained to address a crime that may have a relationship with the journalistic activity: “there are officers who don’t know how to define who is a journalist, or don’t understand the risks that are being run in the journalistic trade.”

Another mistake, Caro points out, is that prosecutors limit the investigation to what the victim's family tells them, even though the State has sufficient capacity to advance deeper investigations.  

The last determining point is to guarantee the impartiality of the prosecutor in charge of the investigation. For example, in the case of the murder of journalist Edison Molina, the Puerto Berrío Prosecutor's Office was the first to investigate, although the family alleged a lack of impartiality, as the perpetrators of the crime would have much control in the municipal institutions. Six years later, irregularities that occurred in the first months of the investigation were reported when the case was handled by another branch of the Prosecutor's Office. 

Declaration of a Crime Against Humanity

The declaration of crimes against humanity prevents cases from being time-barred. This declaration may be requested by the victim's family or may be made by the Prosecutor's Office. This can be done before or after the case is time-barred, although the latter is not so common.

However, for a crime to be declared as a crime against humanity, certain characteristics must be proved. The International Criminal Court establishes the following requirements: The first one is that the crime should have been widespread, that is to say that it should have affected a considerable number of civilians; or systematic, which refers to the organized nature of the acts of violence and the unlikelihood of their occurrence by mere coincidence.

A second point is that the conducts must involve the commission of inhumane acts. The third requirement is that the attack should be directed against civilian population. Finally, it must be proved that the crime was motivated by discrimination, whether it was on ideological, political, religious, ethnic, or national reasons.

Caro points out, moreover, that it is not enough for the crime to be declared against humanity if, in the end, investigations do not progress diligently and in a much faster time.

Furthermore, Caro explains that it is important that investigations advance along the lines of the instigators, and not just on those of the perpetrators of crimes against journalists. “It is in this way that it can be determined which was the reason on which the journalist was wanted to be silenced as for press freedom,” says the legal adviser.

We at FLIP express our concern at the lack of results from the Prosecutor's Office in investigating crimes against journalists for reasons of their trade, as our latest annual report named ‘Callar y fingir, la censura de siempre’ (Shut up and pretend, the usual censorship) reveals, there have been 159 murders of journalists between 1977 and 2019, out of which 125 cases are still in total impunity. 

In our commitment to defend the country's press freedom, we will continue to document, denounce, and follow up cases in which the life, integrity or justice of the voices of silenced journalists are at stake.

Time-barred but not Forgotten Cases

The three cases on the murders of reporters Fabio Restrepo, John Jairo Restrepo and María Helena Salinas, which we mentioned at the beginning of this article, were time-barred between February and March of this year. Fabio was a journalist and John Jairo the cameraman of a local television channel in Barrancabermeja; they were murdered while they were doing reporting about urban militias of Barrancabermeja. Maria Helena was a radio journalist for several radio stations in San Carlos, Antioquia and was also a teacher; apparently her murder occurred amid clashes between the Colombian Army and the ELN guerrilla.