Trial begins for official charged with murder of Jaime Garzon (political comedian)

[Judi Lynn]

Trial begins for official charged with murder of Jaime Garzon
posted by Peter Bolton
Oct 2, 2013



A trial for the 1999 murder one of Colombia’s best-known public figures, journalist and television personality Jaime Garzon, began this week in Bogota.

Jose Miguel Narvaez, the former deputy director of the now-defunct security agency DAS, is standing trial for aggravated homicide, more than 14 years after Garzon’s death.

Prosecutors are alleging that Narvaez organized the assassination by enlisting Carlos Castaño, the founder of the right-wing paramilitary group AUC, to put out a hit against Garzon. Castaño was convicted in absentia in 2001 of masterminding the plot and remains the only person to have been found guilty in the case.

The murder

Garzon, 39 at the time of his death, was shot five times while traveling to work at a Bogota radio station on August 13, 1999, and died instantly. Two assassins pulled up next to his vehicle on a motorcycle as he was stopped at a traffic light and fired at near-point blank range.

More:
http://colombiareports.co/trial-begins-colombia-official-charged-murder-jaime-garzon/

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[Judi Lynn]

1. All roads have ALWAYS led to the right-wing on this assassination.

People have known that from the first. All that was missing was the knowledge of exactly which scums were the ones who did it.

From the article:

~snip~

Widely-read Colombian columnist Francisco Santos said of Garzon’s death: “In this case there is no doubt. The extreme right-wing of the military killed Jaime Garzon.” Former Defense Minister Rafael Pardo appeared to back up Santos’ remarks by publicly announcing that he had witnessed Garzon complaining to then-defense minister Rodrigo Lloreda that a general in the army had mounted a defamation campaign against him as a guerrilla sympathizer. Pardo said that Garzon was being harassed by senior military offices.

Garzon’s life and death

At the time of his death he had been involved in ”civic-political commission” to encourage the government to enter peace talks with Colombia’s second-largest armed leftist rebel group, the ELN. The State Department cable said that now-imprisoned Army Brigadier General Rito Alejo del Rio had met with him and “harshly upbraided Garzon for the ad hoc group’s efforts to restart peace talks between the government and ELN.”

~snip~

Narvaez is one of dozens of government officials with proven ties to the AUC. The former intelligence executive is also involved in a scandal over the illegal wiretapping of Colombia’s Supreme Court, journalists, political opponents of former President Alvaro Uribe and human rights groups.