| Miami (July 2, 2004) – The Inter American Press Association, through its
Committee Against Impunity, urged Oscar Berger, President of Guatemala, to accept
responsibility on behalf of the government for the murder of journalist and politician,
Jorge Carpio Nicolle, whose case will be reviewed during a meeting on July 5-6
at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights based in Costa Rica.
Carpio, editor of El Gráfico newspaper, was killed on July 3, 1993,
while being transported with a delegation during a pre-election campaign in
the interior of Guatemala.
The vice chairman of the IAPA Committee Against Impunity, Gonzalo Marroquín,
director of the Guatemalan newspaper Prensa Libre, met with President Berger
and expressed the IAPA’s expectations that this case be solved favorably
because of its importance in relation to freedom of the press and of expression,
and the rights to life and justice.
President Berger stated that his government will study the case but did not
offer an opinion as to what could result from the meeting next week. Marroquín
also met with Frank La Rué, Executive Director of the Presidential Committee
on Human Rights, mainly created based on IAPA’s work when the State accepted
responsibility for the case of journalist Irma Flaquer Azurdia, who disappeared
in 1980.
During the meeting, the Court should solve, among other issues, potential damages
to relatives of the victim. This action came about after the Inter-American
Commission on Human Rights, headquartered in Washington, presented charges against
the government of Guatemala on June 13, 2003, in the case of Carpio Nicolle,
known as Case #11.333.
For the IAPA, the case of Carpio Nicolle is very important. In 1994, the organization
investigated the murder, which launched the Unpunished Crimes Against Journalists
Project. Since then, the IAPA has investigated 50 unpunished murders of journalists
and the results have been provided to the IACHR, among them the case of Carpio,
to support the family’s charges. | 
