Colombian Attorney General candidate speaks of murder of journalists

Council of State member Marco Antonio Velilla, on the short list of candidates for Colombia’s new Attorney General being interviewed by the Supreme Court justices, told them on January 21 that “given a series of acquittals and inactive investigations in cases of murder of journalists in Colombia an inventory needs to be taken in order to determine what needs to be done to obtain progress in such procedures.” Velilla, who also suggested the creation of special task forces to deal with certain kinds of offenses and new forms of criminal behavior, told the Rapid Response Unit in Colombia that if he is appointed Colombian Attorney General “we need to bring all the pieces together to establish whether there is a systematic campaign against journalists and identify where it is coming from.” For Velilla, a candidate along with Margarita Cabello Blanco and Camilo Ospina named by President Alvaro Uribe, a crime committed against a journalist is connected to something else and that is why the task “is to find out if there organizations dedicated to murdering them.” On Thursday, January 28 the Supreme Court is to decide whether the current short list of candidates is viable and if so to then elect the new Colombian Attorney General.