Journalists
Killed in 1997: 26 Confirmed
Argentina:
1 José Luis Cabezas, Noticias, January 25, 1997, Pinamar
Cabezas, a photographer for the news magazine Noticias, was found dead on January 25, handcuffed and charred, inside a burned rental car outside of Pinamar, a beach resort where Cabezas was working on a story. He was one of the first photojournalists to take a picture of Alfredo Yabrán, a well-known and reclusive tycoon described by a prominent politician as head of the Argentine mafia.
Cabezas' murder evoked memories of brutal killings in Argentina's "dirty war" of the 1980s and outraged journalists, who took to the streets in protest and pressured the government for a thorough investigation. The Justice Minister was forced to resign after it became known that he had received phone calls from Yabrán. Numerous arrests have been made in connection with the murder, including current and former police officers and Yabrán's security chief. Journalists covering the investigation have been threatened.
On February 2, 2000, the Dolores appellate court passed life sentences on eight men convicted of participating in the the killing. The court found that the murder had been masterminded by Yabrán, who committed suicide in 1998.
Brazil: 1
Edgar Lopes de Faria, FM Capital, October 29, 1997, Campo Grande
Lopes de Faria, host of the programs "O Escaramuça" (The Fighter) on the local radio station FM Capital and "Boca do Povo" (The Mouth of the People) on television station TV Record, was murdered in Campo Grande, capital Mato Grosso do Sul State, while on his way to the radio station. Police believe trained assassins, who fired with accuracy and left no trail, carried out his murder. Lopes de Faria had reported on the hired killers, who investigators say are responsible for recent murders in Mato Grosso.
Cambodia: 2
Chet Duong Daravuth, Neak Prayuth, March 30, 1997, Phnom Penh
Chet, a reporter for the newspaper Neak Prayuth (The Fighter) who had recently obtained permission to publish a new paper, was killed in a grenade attack outside the National Assembly while covering a Khmer National Party rally where opposition leader Samuel Rainsy was speaking. Other journalists were injured, and at least 26 people were killed. The motive for the attack is believed to be political.
Michael Senior, free-lancer, July 7, 1997, Phnom Penh
Senior, a television newscaster and English teacher, was assassinated while photographing looting by soldiers in a public market in the aftermath of a coup begun two days earlier by then-second prime minister Hun Sen. He was accosted by the soldiers, Hun Sen loyalists, who shot him first in the knee. As he lay in the street pleading for mercy, he was shot again, executed in front of his Cambodian wife and brother-in-law.
The 23-year-old Canadian citizen was born in Cambodia, where he was orphaned as an infant during the Pol Pot terror years. In 1975, he was adopted by a family in Canada, where he was raised. He returned to Cambodia in 1995. He had earlier worked at the Cambodia Daily in Phnom Penh. Phnom Penh editors say that Senior's pictures, had they been recovered, would have been used in their coverage of the coup.
Colombia: 4
Gerardo Bedoya Borrero, El País, March 20, 1997, Cali
Bedoya, opinion editor of the Cali daily newspaper El País and a harsh critic of drug trafficking, was assassinated as he was getting into his car by a gunman who shot him repeatedly and fled the scene on a motorcycle. Colleagues said in a public statement that they believed that drug traffickers perpetrated the crime. Three weeks before his death, Bedoya had written a column defending the controversial U.S. decision to decertify Colombia as a recipient of U.S. economic aid because of its government's alleged ties to cocaine cartels. "Even though they call me pro-Yankee, I prefer the pressure of the U.S. government to the pressure of the narcos," he wrote.
Freddy Elles Ahumada, free-lancer, March 18, 1997, Cartagena
Elles, a free-lance photojournalist who drove a taxi to supplement his income, was abducted by three unidentified individuals in Cartagena on March 17 and found assassinated in his taxi the next day. He had been shot several times, and his body showed signs of torture. Local journalists believe that Elles may have been assassinated in reprisal for his photographs of police violence published in the Bogotá daily El Espectador. Only the spare tire of his taxi was missing, making robbery an unlikely motive for the crime.
Francisco Castro Menco, Fundación Cultural, November 8, 1997, Majagual
Castro, president of the Fundación Cultural, a community foundation that ran daily radio broadcasts in the violence-ridden town of Majagual, Sucre Department, fatally shot in his home by unidentified killers. While Castro tried to make the Fundación Cultural a neutral forum for community news, it represented an independent voice in a region where both armed guerrillas and paramilitary forces are active. The foundation provided airtime for all three mayoral candidates in the October municipal elections without endorsing any. Castro, a community leader and a candidate for the departmental assembly in October, hosted a daily program on community topics and often called for an end to the violence. Local journalists believe he was murdered because of his appeals for peace but are unsure if guerrillas or the paramilitary are responsible.
Jairo Elías Márquez Gallego, El Marqués, November 20, 1997, Armenia
Márquez, director of the magazine El Marqués, which is known for its critical reporting on corruption, was killed in a drive-by shooting by two gunmen on a motorcycle as he was entering his car on a downtown street in the town of Armenia in western Colombia. Márquez had received numerous death threats in the previous two years because of his crusade against corruption in the region. He was the fourth journalist murdered in Colombia in 1997.
Guatemala: 1
Jorge Luis Marroquín Sagastume, Sol Chortí, June 5, 1997, Jocotán
Marroquín, founding director of the local monthly Sol Chortí, which has reported extensively on corruption in the mayor's office, was fatally shot in the town of Jocotán by two assassins, according to eyewitnesses. Brothers Neftalí and José Gabriel López León, who were being tried for the murder, said that Jocotán mayor José Manuel Ohajaca hired José Gabriel to kill Marroquín, who was also a member of the ruling Partida de Avanzada Nacional (National Vanguard Party) in the department of Chiquimula.
On September 21, 1999, the Neftalí and José Gabriel were sentenced to 30 years in prison. Ohajaca, remained at large; at year's end he was rumored to be living in Los Angeles.
India: 7
Altaf Ahmed Faktoo, Doordarshan TV, January 1, 1997, Srinagar
Faktoo, an anchor for the state-owned Doordarshan television station in Srinagar, Kashmir, was assassinated, reportedly by militant separatists, who fired two shots at the journalist with a gun equipped with a silencer. He had received repeated threats from militant separatists because of his work and had been kidnapped and detained by a militant group in 1994.
Faktoo had aired pro-government news reports that criticized the separatist movement. Shortly before his death, he started working for a news program about Kashmir that is broadcast by satellite throughout India, but not in Kashmir. He was the seventh journalist assassinated in Kashmir since the militant movement began in 1989 and the third to be specifically targeted because of his work with the state-owned broadcast media.
Saidan Shafi, Doordarshan TV, March 16, 1997, Srinagar
Shafi, a reporter for Doordarshan TV, the official Indian television network, for "Kashmir File," a weekly news program, and "Eyewitness," a five-minute nightly news capsule, was fatally shot in an ambush by two gunmen in Srinagar, Kashmir. His personal security guard also was killed in the attack. "Kashmir File" criticized militant Kashmiri separatists in the state, and Shafi told colleagues that he had received threats from separatists for what they said was his "biased" reporting.
Jagadish Babu, Eenadu Television (E-TV), November 19, 1997, Hyderabad
S. Gangadhara Raju, Eenadu Television (E-TV), November 19, 1997, Hyderabad
P. Srinivas Rao, Eenadu Television (E-TV), November 19, 1997, Hyderabad
S. Krishna, Eenadu Television (E-TV), November 19, 1997, Hyderabad
G. Raja Sekhar, assistant, Eenadu Television (E-TV), November 19, 1997, Hyderabad
Babu, a producer for private channel E-TV; Gangadhara Raju, an E-TV cameraman, Srinivas Rao and Krishna, assistant cameramen for E-TV; and Raja Sekhar, an assistant for E-TV, were killed in a car bomb explosion while covering the making of a film. As they were leaving the Rama Naidu Studios in Hyderabad, their vehicle caught the brunt of the massive blast, which police said was caused by a remote control car bomb parked by the studio entrance. The television crew's driver, P. Chandra Sekhar Reddy, was also killed. At least 17 others died and more than 30 were injured. The attack is believed to have been motivated by political rivalry targeted at the film's producer, Paritala Ravi, a former guerrilla leader pardoned in return for his surrender. Ravi is also a state legislator and member of the governing Telugu Desam party.
Indonesia: 2
Muhammad Sayuti Bochari, Pos Makasar, June 11, 1997, Luwu, Sulawesi
Sayuti Bochari, a journalist with the Ujungpandang-based weekly Pos Makasar, died in the hospital of head and neck injuries. Sayuti was found lying unconscious on June 9 on a street in the village of Luwu, about 300 miles (480 kilometers) north of Ujungpandang, the provincial capital. His motorbike, found next to his body, was not damaged. Family members and friends said his injuries indicated he had been beaten.
Sayuti had written several articles about local officials who had allegedly embezzled government funds earmarked for alleviating poverty. He had also reported on the theft of timber involving a village chief, a story that made the front page of Pos Makasar on June 1. The paper's editor-in-chief, Andi Tonra Mahie, said Sayuti's death was a result of his reporting on local corruption, but local police said the cause was a traffic accident.
Naimullah, Sinar Pagi, July 25, 1997, Pantai Penibungan
Naimullah, a reporter for Sinar Pagi, was found murdered. His mutilated body, with stab wounds in his neck and bruises on his head, temples, chest, and wrists, was discovered in the back seat of his car in Pantai Penibungan, about 90 kilometers (56 miles) north of Pontianak, the provincial capital of West Kalimantan.
According to reports in the July 28 editions of the newspapers Media Indonesia and Akcaya, Naimullah had recently reported on timber theft for Sinar Pagi and had been conducting an investigation for the paper into illegal logging in Kalimantan. He was last seen with four men, including one from the company suspected of having been involved with the logging.
CPJ sent a July 28, 1997, letter to President Suharto urging his government to conduct an immediate investigation into the murder and to disclose the findings fully.
A CPJ representative visited Pontianak in October 1999 and, after speaking with local journalists about the case, concluded that Naimullah was killed for his reporting on police links to illegal logging activities in the area. The police had failed to investigate the case, according to local sources, and some journalists suggested police may have been involved in the murder.
Iran: 1
Ebrahim Zalzadeh, Mayar, February 22, 1997, Tehran
Zalzadeh, publisher of the monthly magazine Mayar, was identified dead in a Tehran morgue on March 29, thirty-five days after he disappeared on February 22. According to witnesses, there were three or four stab wounds visible on his chest. A coroner's report said that his body had been discovered on or about February 24 by a road in the outskirts of Tehran.
Mayar, a magazine that frequently criticized government censorship practices against the media, was forced to close by the authorities in 1995. Zalzadeh was one of several Iranian writers and publishers who had volunteered to share the punishment of magazine editor Abbas Maroufi, who was sentenced in January 1996 to six months in prison and 35 lashes for criticizing the government.
Mexico: 3
Jesús Abel Bueno León, 7 Días, May 22, 1997, Chilpancingo
Bueno León, director of the regional weekly 7 Días (7 Days), was found dead, his body ridden with bullets, next to his burned car on a road close to the city of Chilpancingo, the state capital of Guerrero, 120 miles south of Mexico City. Members of the National Union of Journalists said that they had asked the governor to protect Bueno León two months ago after he had received death threats.
Bueno León left a letter to be made public in the event of his death listing names of those who may have wanted him dead. Topping the list was José Ruben Robles Catalán, former secretary of state for Guerrero, who was suing Bueno León and other journalists for defamation for reporting on criminal allegations against him that the government was investigating. After Bueno León's murder, 50 local journalists marched to the central plaza in Chilpancingo, where they called on the governor to investigate the circumstances of the crime.
Benjamín Flores González, La Prensa, July 15, 1997, San Luis Río Colorado
Flores González, editor and owner of the daily La Prensa in San Luis Río Colorado, Sonora State, in northern Mexico, was gunned down as he was arriving at the newspaper's offices. Flores González was known for his aggressive coverage of the drug trade, including a story published in May reporting that a half-ton of cocaine confiscated by federal authorities had disappeared from the Federal Judicial Police Headquarters in San Luis Río Colorado. In addition, his newspaper had recently reported on the special treatment being given to an imprisoned drug lord. Police arrested a gunman on July 18 allegedly hired by the drug lord's brother and charged him with the crime.
Víctor Hernández Martínez, Como, July 26, 1997, Mexico City
Hernández, a police reporter for the magazine Como, was hit on the head with a blunt instrument on July 25 and died the next day. Hernández was attacked after leaving the office of the Federal Judicial Police, where he had gone to work on a story. Colleagues at Como suspect that federal agents working for the judiciary or individuals connected to the police may have killed him. Hernández often covered stories on the police and drug trafficking. He had received threats and was the target of an attempted car bombing.
Pakistan: 1
Z.A. Shahid, Khabrain, January 18, 1997, Lahore
Shahid, a photographer with the Urdu-language daily Khabrain, was killed in a bomb blast at a court house. The bombing targeted leaders of the Sipah Sahaba Pakistan, an anti-Shiite party, who were being brought from jail to a hearing. At least 19 people were killed and more than 80 injured. Five of the injured were journalists.
Philippines: 1
Danny Hernandez, People's Journal Tonight, June 3, 1997, Manila
Hernandez, news editor of a popular tabloid daily, People's Journal Tonight, for which he wrote a column called "Sunday Punch," was fatally shot in a taxi after leaving the Journal office just before dawn. It was later learned the taxi had been stolen hours earlier and was apparently waiting for him, police said. Colleagues said Hernandez had told them he had been receiving death threats from members of drug rings. He specialized in exposing drug syndicates and police corruption.
Sierra Leone: 1
Ishmael Jalloh, free-lancer, June 3, 1997, Allentown
Jalloh, a free-lance reporter for the independent newspapers Punch, Storm, and Vision, was killed while covering the battle at Allentown of the combined battalion of the Revolutionary United Front and Sierra Leone Armed Forces Revolutionary Council with Nigerian soldiers of the West African peace monitoring force, ECOMOG.
Ukraine: 1
Borys Derevyanko, Vechernyaya Odessa, August 11, 1997, Odessa
Derevyanko, editor-in-chief of Vechernyaya Odessa, a popular and influential thrice-weekly newspaper, was fatally shot at point-blank range on his way to work near the Press House, where the newspaper's offices are located. Colleagues believe the murder of Derevyanko, who was editor of Vechernyaya Odessa for 24 years, was related to the newspaper's opposition to the policies of Odessa's mayor. The chief regional prosecutor declared the murder a contract killing and launched an official investigation. Local authorities announced in September that they had arrested a suspect, described as a professional assassin, who confessed to killing Derevyanko, but they gave no details about his confession.
Natan Pereira Gatinho, Ouro Verde, January 11, 1997, Paragominas
Gatinho, a correspondent for the television station Ouro Verde, also known as TV Mundial, was fatally shot. A militant activist of the Worker's Party and a candidate in the 1996 municipal elections, the journalist had been receiving death threats because of his radio program. A truck driver with whom Gatinho had had a fight two days before his death was arrested for the murder but has denied the charges. Brazilian press groups suspect that local landowners murdered Gatinho because of his journalistic work, but some journalists believe he was killed because of a personal feud with the truck driver. Gatinho had accused him of running over and killing a colleague at Ouro Verde. Until November 1996, he also hosted a program for Radio Cidade in which he read letters from farmers and workers complaining about their dire conditions.
Cambodia: 1
Ou Sareoun, Samleng Reas Khmer, October 14, 1997, Phnom Penh
Ou, a reporter for Samleng Reas Khmer (Voice of the Cambodian People), was dragged into the street by security guards as he was distributing newspapers to vendors in the market and shot dead. The newspaper was investigating extortion in the central market of Phnom Penh, and security guards had been the target of the newspaper's investigation. The official report of Ou's death said he was drunk and had been killed in a dispute over a card game, but the Khmer Journalists Association maintains that he was killed because of the newspaper's reporting. Police arrested the guard who shot Ou, but he was later released, and no charges were filed against him.
Colombia: 1
Alejandro Jaramillo, El Sur, October 24, 1997, Pasto
Jaramillo, deputy director of the newspaper El Sur in Pasto from June to August, was reported missing on October 24. His dismembered body was found the following week. Because of the gruesome nature of his murder, involvement by organized crime is suspected. Before taking that job at El Sur, Jaramillo had lived in exile in Ecuador, where he fled in 1989 after receiving death threats. Several years earlier, in an incident that may have been related to his work as a police reporter, he was shot and injured while working for El País in Cali.
El Salvador: 1
Lorena Saravia, Radio RCS, August 25, 1997, San Salvador
Saravia, a prominent newscaster in El Salvador and a news anchor at radio station RCS, was abducted from her car, murdered with a shot to the head, and found dead in a vacant lot the following morning. Her car was found a week later in Santa Ana, 50 kilometers (31 miles) from San Salvador. Nothing was stolen. Prior to working at Radio RCS, Saravia was a television news presenter. Radio RCS airs political talk shows hosted by ex-military officers and ex-guerrillas.
In February 1998, Salvadoran police announced with great fanfare that they had arrested 13 people, among them several former police officers, for the murder of Saravia, who they alleged had been killed on the orders of a jilted lover. Five men were immediately released because of lack of evidence. Seven months later, the remaining eight were set free by a judge who ruled that they had been framed in an internecine police department dispute. While the motive for Saravia's murder remains unclear, the handling of the investigation has raised concerns about a possible cover-up.
Guatemala: 2
Luis Ronaldo De León Godoy, Prensa Libre, November 14, 1997, Guatemala City
De León, head of the weekend supplement section of the leading daily Prensa Libre, was stabbed as he was leaving his house in central Guatemala City by an assailant who had been waiting in a nearby car for several hours, eyewitnesses reported. He died after three hours of surgery. Neither money nor personal documents were taken in the attack, local journalists reported, making robbery an unlikely motive.
Hernández Pérez, Radio Campesina, July 16, 1997, Tiquisate
Pérez, a newsreader at Radio Campesina in Tiquisate, Escuintla, was ambushed by a group of heavily armed men as he was leaving the station in the morning and killed instantly by gunfire. Another employee of the station, Haroldo Escobar Noriega, a messenger, was also killed. The motive for the murders is not known.
Peru: 1
Tito Pilco Mori, Radio Frecuencia Popular, September 3, 1997, Rioja
Pilco, owner and director of Radio Frecuencia Popular in Rioja and host of the program "El Pueblo Quiere Saber" (The People Want to Know), which frequently criticized public prosecutors, judges, and police officials, was assaulted August 27 on the outskirts of Rioja as he was returning home from a visit with a cousin. He was found, severely injured and unable to speak, at 5 a.m. on August 28, some distance from his motorcycle.
He died on September 3 in a Lima hospital. Two witnesses reported seeing assailants in a white car without license plates intercept Pilco on his motorcycle and beat him. But the official report said his death resulted from head wounds received when he crashed his motorcyle because he was drunk. The investigation was initially headed by José Monteverde, a provincial prosecutor whose integrity Pilco had questioned on his show, according to the local press. After a Lima newspaper published an account of Pilco's death, the case was reopened.
Russia: 1
Valery Krivosheyev, Komsomolskaya Pravda, September 6, 1997, Lipetsk
Krivosheyev, a special correspondent for the national daily Komsomolskaya Pravda in Lipetsk in Central Russia, was found dead from skull trauma near a coffee shop where the reporter frequently met his sources. Colleagues at the newspaper and at the Glasnost Defense Foundation claim that Krivosheyev's killing was related to his work as an investigative journalist covering local and national public figures. Later reports indicated that he was killed in a brawl during a wedding reception at the café. The day before his death, he told friends at De-Fakto, a newspaper where he had formerly worked, that he had scheduled a meeting with a source on a story he called "a bombshell of national proportions."
Ukraine: 1
Petro Shevchenko, Kyivskiye Vedomosti, March 13, 1997, Kyiv
Shevchenko, a correspondent for the Kyiv daily Kyivskiye Vedomosti, was found hanged in an abandoned building. Kyiv police labeled Shevchenko's death a suicide, but his colleagues at the newspaper believe he was murdered because he had co-authored a series of articles published in the weeks before his death about disputes between the mayor of Luhansk and the local branch of the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU), successor to the KGB.