Colombia continues to face a harsh reality of violence and insecurity targeting journalists. After years of seeking justice, the Colombian state has finally signed a friendly settlement agreement with the families of two journalists from the newspaper El Espectador, who brought their case before international courts, denouncing the impunity surrounding their murders. The journalists were killed in 1991 while reporting in Segovia, Antioquia department.
In a ceremony marked by tears and reflections on one of the darkest periods in Colombian journalism, the state formally accepted full responsibility for the murders of journalists Julio Chaparro (a writer and reporter) and Jorge Torres (a photojournalist), as well as for the longstanding impunity in the case. The team has been covering a massacre that took place in Segovia when they were gunned down on April 24, 1991, allegedly by hitmen linked to the National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrilla group.
It took 34 years for the Colombian state to finally issue an apology to the victims’ families and commit to a more thorough investigation into what happened that day.
What were the murdered Colombian journalists doing in Segovia, Antioquia?
At the time of their murders, Chaparro and Torres were working on the fifth installment of the series “What Violence Took Away”–a collection of in-depth reports chronicling the war and massacres across Colombia. By 1991, these stories dominated headlines due to their raw detail and the widespread terror inflicted on the country’s most vulnerable communities. Just three years earlier, in Segovia, a group of paramilitaries-allegedly with support from the Army-stormed the town in vehicles, opening fire and throwing grenades, killing 46 people.
Chaparro and Torres had traveled to this region of Colombia with the intention of writing a new story and capturing photographs to reflect the town’s current reality. They brought with them not only their professional skills but also their artistic sensibilities. Chaparro was known to be a poet and Torres a perceptive photographer.
What is known so far from the investigation
The case file reveals that although several ELN members were detained in the 1990’s as suspects in the murders, the justice system never achieved a single conviction. In fact, authorities’ response was so limited that, by 2020, the Attorney General’s Office’s only course of action was to formally charge ELN leaders alias Gabino, Pablo Beltran, and Antonio Garcia.
With no meaningful response from the Colombian state, and in face of the shortcomings of the Colombian justice system, the Chapparo and Torres family had no other alternative than to turn to international justice in 2010, bringing the case before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). It was before this autonomous body that the current government reached a friendly settlement agreement with the families involved to avoid future rulings against the state.
This raises a profound question: does justice truly exist, or does it only prevail when backed into a corner by international pressure? At least that has been the case with the Journalists from El Espectador, whose families had to resort to international mechanisms in order to force the justice system into action.
However, for Yebrail Haddad, director of the State’s International Legal Defense, “this agreement is not merely a legal formality, it is an act of humanity, dignity, and respect.” Still, many are left wondering why this gesture came 34 years after the massacre. It remains to be seen whether–as the Colombian government has pledged–it will follow through with a thorough investigation to uncover the full truth behind the murders of the two El Espectador journalists.
As part of the friendly settlement, the Colombian government also committed to establishing compensation mechanisms for the victims’ families and to issuing a binding directive for prosecutors nationwide. This directive aims to ensure due diligence in investigations, proper preservation of evidence, and a specialized approach to crimes against journalists.
Moreover, the measures outlined in the agreement between the state and the families of the two journalists, are intended not only to honor the memory of these professionals, but also to strengthen reporting and photojournalism, as vital journalistic genres. The families hope the agreement will shed light on the profound impact that the killing of journalists has on freedom of expression in a democratic Colombia.
The back-and-forth of Colombian justice in a murder case left with loose ends
In April 1991, state investigation into the murders of the two Colombian journalists was formally launched, initially resulting in the preventive detention of ELN militants Ramiro Madrid, Joaquin Lezcano, Esau Cordoba, Leonidas Gaviria, Jorge Mosquera, and Humberto Zapata on charges of rebellion. Two years later, the Prosecutor’s Office brought three of them to trial, but in 1994, it overturned that decision and released all those originally linked to the crime.
The same year, the authorities opened a new preliminary investigation. However, citing the inability to identify those responsibly, the case was suspended in 1999, leaving the file unresolved and the crime in impunity–a sadly recurring pattern in the Colombian justice system.
Later, in the mid-2000s, the Prosecutor’s Office reactivated the case and assigned it to a Human Rights unit. It was in 2011 that the unit issued a decision to drop charges against four of the accused–who by then, had passed away as a considerable amount of time slipped by. That same year, the Prosecutor’s Office also declined to classify the murders as crimes against humanity. However, it did acknowledge the killings as acts of war meaning they are not subject to a statute of limitations and must be investigated indefinitely.
Even so, Colombian authorities have never recognized the murders as being linked to the victims’ work as journalists. Thirty-four years later, the only thing the families have learned, is that the prosecutors who should have been relentless investigators, have barely managed to unmask the ruth.
The timeline of judicial actions has made it clear that this case has been marked by a lack of proper investigation and repeated contradictions within the Colombian justice system
It is deeply unfortunate for Colombia that the state takes years—and in some cases, simply shelves—investigations like those of journalists Torres and Chaparro, sending a disheartening message about the state of justice.
Impunity reigns for perpetrators and the unchecked violence across the country continues to take a devastating toll on innocent lives.
As Daniel Chaparro, son of the slain journalist, poignantly summed up to the public: “I thought of justice as a small, clumsy, distracted dog chasing its tiny tail…it sounds simple, but it’s ignorance, incompetence, impunity.” His words still resonate, capturing the emotional impact this long and painful process has taken on the victims’ families.