IMPUNITY/COLOMBIA

WHEREAS the Popayán Specialized Court judge and the Florencia Specialized Criminal Court judge decided on acquittals which allowed the alleged murderers of José Duviel Vásquez (a reporter with La Voz de la Selva radio station), killed on July 6, 2001 in Florencia, Caquetá province) and of José Everardo Aguilar (correspondent of Radio Súper and of Bolívar Estéreo, killed on April 24, 2009 in Patia,Cauca province) to go free, in the Public Prosecutor’s Office’s opinion ignoring the evidence obtained in the investigation carried out, and in the case of the Florencia court failing to comply with the requirements of the law regarding notification on making the ruling WHEREAS the Colombian Public Prosecutor’s Office opened an investigation into José Gregorio Alvarez Andrade, a member of the demobilized Autodefensas del Bloque Norte movement who was accused of the murder of Jaime Rengifo Rivero, owner of the El Guajiro News Company and head of the foundation Periodistas en Acción, who was killed on April 13, 2003, and requested the Human Rights Unit in Ibagué to charge two former paramilitaries in the case of the murder of Luis Eduardo Alfonso, director of radio station Meridiano 70 in Arauca, killed on Mach 18, 2003 WHEREAS on March 8 the arrest was made of former member of Congress Ferney Tapasco González on orders of the Specialized Anti-Terrorism Public Prosecutor’s Office 27 in Bogotá, which has charged him with plotting to commit a serious crime, and the Mexican Attorney General’s Office in August 2009 had requested the Public Prosecutor’s Office to name former Congressman Tapasco and his son, former member of the House of Representatives Dickson Ferney Tapasco, as masterminds in the investigation into the murder of Orlando Sierre, managing editor of the newspaper La Patria, killed in January 2002 in Manizales THE IAPA MIDYEAR MEETING RESOLVES to ask the Public Prosecutor’s Office to take up again the inquiries in both cases, appeal the above-mentioned rulings and ask the Judiciary Higher Council to investigate the reasons for which the Florencia Specialized Circuit Court did not make the notifications that are required under the law concerning the ruling made, thus preventing the prosecution from lodging an appeal to ask the Public Prosecutor’s Office to define the legal situation of the alleged murderers of Jaime Rengifo Revero, owner of the El Guajiro News Company and head of the foundation Periodistas en Acción, killed on April 23, 2003 and Luis Eduardo Alfonso, director of radio station Meridiano 70 in Arauca, killed on March 18, 2003, and to urge the judges to set exemplary sentences in order to punish the murderers to insist to the Public Prosecutor’s Office that it review the arguments presented by the Colombian Attorney General’s Office and act on its request that former Congressman Ferney Tapasco and his son, former member of the House of Representatives Dickson Ferney Tapasco, be named as masterminds in the investigation into the murder of Orlando Sierra, managing editor of the newspaper La Patria, killed on January 30, 2002 in Manizales.