A regional court in Peru has sentenced a mayor to 17 years in prison for ordering the killing of a journalist last year. The Ancash regional higher court December 14 sentenced Yungay mayor Amaro Léon Léon to prison for ordering the killing of Antonio de la Torre Echeandia, the presenter of a news programme on local Radio Orbita, who was stabbed to death on February 14, 2004 in Yungay (400 km north of Lima), Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has said.
The two people who carried out the murder, Antonio Torre Camones and Pedro Angeles Figueroa, received the same sentence. All three were also ordered to pay 20,000 soles (5,000 euros) each in damages. Léon was arrested on March 31, 2004 at the request of the Yungay prosecutor’s office, which said he had De la Torre killed to prevent him broadcasting a report about Léon.
In his programme "Con verdad y justicia" (With Truth and Justice), De la Torre criticised mismanagement by local officials and allowed listeners to make comments on the air. He had often received threats prior to his death and had already been the target of a murder attempt.
Arrest warrants have been issued for two other suspects in the murder, the mayor’s daughter, Enma Léon, and Moisés David Julca, who are both on the run. Lawyers for the three defendants convicted said they would appeal to the Lima supreme court, which will probably issue its ruling next month.
Two unidentified men fatally stabbed the 43-year-old journalist as he was heading home from a meeting. According to local news reports quoting his wife and son, de la Torre identified one of his attackers as "El Negro," a nickname for Hipólito Casiano Vega Jara, a driver for the Yungay mayor’s office. Police arrested Vega. Antonio Torres, a friend of de la Torre who allegedly led the journalist to the scene of his murder, was also arrested soon. De la Torre died as he was being rushed to a hospital in an ambulance.
De la Torre was a harsh critic of his former friend, Yungay mayor Amaro León, whom he accused of malfeasance. In 2002, de la Torre had worked as a campaign chief for León, the Lima-based daily La República reported. After León won the elections, he appointed de la Torre head of the municipality’s public relations office. The two parted ways three months into León’s tenure as mayor, when de la Torre resigned after discovering several instances of alleged corruption, according to La República.
Julio César Giraldo, owner of Radio Orbita, was quoted by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) saying that de la Torre had been threatened and attacked several times. In October 2003, Giraldo said, unidentified individuals had hurled a homemade bomb at the journalist’s home in the middle of the night. The explosion did not cause major damage, and de la Torre was able to put out the fire. De la Torre had also received several anonymous threatening letters. De la Torre’s family had blamed Mayor León for the murder, but León rejected any involvement in the crime.
On March 17, 2004, at the request of the Yungay Public Prosecutor’s Office, an Ancash court ordered León and his daughter detained on charges of masterminding de la Torre’s murder in an attempt to silence the journalist. According to Prosecutor Luz Marina Romero, two other municipal workers were charged as accomplices in the crime.
