Paramilitary jailed for murder of journalist Álvaro Alonso Escobar

More than 10 years after the fact Edgar Córdoba Trujillo, a.k.a. Cinco Siete, has been sentenced to 24 years in prison for the murder of journalist Álvaro Alonso Escobar on December 23, 2001 at his home in the Colombian town of Fundación. He was shot several times by a hitman. Córdoba is a former member of the Northern Bloc of the paramilitary organization Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia who had admitted responsibility for Escobar’s death as co-perpetrator, pleading guilty to a charge of aggravated homicide and having been hired to commit a criminal offense due to his membership of the paramilitary group. Escobar was editor of the weekly newspaper Región, in which he used to criticize local officials and politicians, accusing them of corruption and having links with armed groups. It should be pointed out that he took charge of the paper after its previous editor, Hernando Rangel Moreno, himself had been murdered, on April 11, 1999.