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Jairo Elías Márquez
November 20, 1997

Case: Jairo Elías Márquez



A Murder That Remains Unsolved:

April 1, 2001
Diana Calderón

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In February 10, 1998, three months after the murder of journalist Jairo Elías Márquez on the street in the Quindio provincial capital, the Armenia Regional Prosecutor’s Office received the first information about who might have fired the revolver and who had ordered the murder. That information pointed to then Congressman Carlos Alberto Oviedo Alfaro as the man who had masterminded the killing.

But three and a half years later the journalist’s death remains unpunished. One of the key witnesses to the murder, Noel Noscué, retracted his statements before himself being murdered. The Prosecutor’s Office´s Human Rights Unit cast doubt on his testimony and the Supreme Court ruled that it was not competent to investigate Oviedo for alleged homicide.

Noscué, is an eye-witness who in February 1998 said that he had taken part in a conversation with two other people, Carlos Melo and Carlos Alberto Oviedo, in which the latter had said that after the business (murder) of an official of the CTI (the Prosecutor’s Office’s Technical Investigation Division), it was Márquez’ turn and then that of politician John Byron Coeche.

The witness, who according to his own testimony had been working since 1997 for Oviedo as a drug trafficker in Rondanillo, an Quindío neighborhood, declared that those who had carried out the murder of Márquez were Bernardo Marulanda, a.k.a. Canoso, and former police officer José Edgar García González. He added that Melo had not want to do the killing and told García and Canoso to do it.

It was then that the Prosecutor’s Office sent Noscué’s testimony and other evidence supporting the allegation of Oviedo’s having masterminded the murder to the Supreme Court, because Oviedo was a member of Congress at the time and the only Court has competency in such matters. The Supreme Court took up the case and Oviedo’s congressional immunity was lifted. But on September 8, 1999, it sent the case back to the Prosecutor’s Office on the grounds that it was no competent to hear any matter concerning a congressman that did not have to do with his legislative duties.

Oviedo is currently still in jail in connection with investigations into this and 10 other murders. Marulanda, one of those suspected of carrying out the Márquez murder, was himself killed and Garcá González was freed from custody after the key witness changed his testimony.

The Prosecutor’s Office’s investigation is relying, as it did three and a half years ago, on a new witness testifying that Oviedo ordered Márquez’ murder - but the chances of this happening are diminishing. An earthquake in January 2000 in which more than 2,000 people died left the city in ruins and this has led to an upsurge in crime. Investigating drug-trafficking, robbery and homicide now take up most of the Quindio State Attorney’s Office.

Diego Márquez Gallego, Jairo Elías’ brother, has not doubt that Oviedo was behind the murder. He said Oviedo’s secretary had asked him to take care of himself, showing him a letter that his brother had sent 15 days before his murder to the Quindio police chief, Sergio Asdrual Novoa, warning about Oviedo’s conduct. The letter said, “there are facts that are being investigated that involve M. Oviedo, something that concerns me because of what could happen in the future if this situation is not remedied.”

State Attorney Eduardo Mesa, of the Prosecutor’s Office’s Human Rights Unit, explained to this reporter the reasons he questions Noscué’s testimony. “The witness has a record that makes us doubt what he says. I went to Cali and found that Noscué had a habit of acting as a professional witness. He is also under investigation for false testimony and homicide. I think that he picked up rumors on the street.”

Nevertheless, his version contains a great deal of evidentiary elements, so many that several of those interviewed by this reporter claim that Noscué himself could have been the one who killed Márquez and he pretended to be an eye-witness so as to fool the investigators.

In his testimony, Noscué said that he had decided to talk because Oviedo usually killed his hitmen. The Prosecutor’s Office is investigating Oviedo in connection with the murders of hitmen known as Pies Grandes (Big Feet), Rimula and El Topo (The Mole). Noscué added that the conversation in which the Márquez murder was ordered took place at Oviedo’s office and he gave specific, proven details about the gun used to commit the crime, a 9 mm pistol. He revealed that there had been an earlier attempt to murder Márquez, but he had hidden in a gas station. This was confirmed by Hernán Cruz Henao, head of the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Armenia, where Márquez had filed an official complaint about the incident.

The six-volume case file is in the hands of the Prosecutor’s Office’s Human Rights Unit, whose Diego Márquez Gallego is studying the possibility of asking for the case to go to federal jurisdiction, to make it more likely to be solved.

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