|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
A journalist’s terror
By Juan Luis Font
It was 8.45 in the morning on Tuesday 24 June, 2003. José Rubén Zamora, the publisher of the Guatemalan newspaper elPeriódico and a fierce critic of the government of Alfonso Portillo, was at home. His wife Minayú, their three children and three household employees were with him.
The official party was seeking re-election in the upcoming November elections.
Margarita, one of the employees, answered a knock at the door. A woman’s voice announced through the intercom that she was there with representatives of the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the police to deliver something to Zamora. When he opened the door, a group of men armed with pistols and large weapons barged in saying they were going to conduct a search. They first held the employees and the family at gunpoint. They then led them to a room and took Zamora away with them. Later, they forced him to take off his clothes in front of his family and get down on his knees. They tied him up and blindfolded him. They told his children and family they were going to execute him and pretended to do so with a shotgun. Before leaving, one of the men, the apparent leader of the group, warned Zamora against reporting the attack on his house and asked him to stop annoying “those at the top”, saying that some of them were very annoyed.
Portillo’s government immediately denied any connection to the incident. But within less than two months, Zamora, assisted by a group of private investigators, was able to identify two of his attackers as members of the government’s security forces. In February 2005, two agents, one from the late Presidential Guard (EMP) and the other a former collaborator with the National Police, were brought to trial.
During the first hearing of the trial, Zamora explained that the former president of Guatemala, Alfonso Portillo, came to his house and confessed to him that the criminals were members of the EMP, men from the former attorney general, Carlos de León Argueta, and the former superintendent of the SAT tax department, Marco Tulio Abadío. However, the ex-president did not want to disclose that information publicly.
The court found one of the accused guilty and absolved the other. Zamora appealed the verdict and convinced the Appeals Court to order a new trial.
|
|
| |
