By then, the 62-year-old Medina was already under sentence of death, to be put into effect just four months later. Three bullets fired from a .38-caliber revolver took the life of the courageous Colombian-Costa Rican journalist whose radio program “La Patada” had become a power voice for exposing wrongdoing.

Aggressive, sarcastic and merciless towards corruption, Medina went up against powerful political, business, government, economic and religious interests. His weapon was investigation. Those coming under his criticism rarely found any escape. In 1998, “La Patada” (which was broadcast by Radio Monumental) ceased being solely a humorous program and turned into an explosive – and implacable – combination of exposure, sarcasm and humor of the highest level. The professional team that produced it called itself “The Anti-Corruption Squad.

”This made numerous enemies for Medina, but he developed an image of credibility. People would say, “If Parmenio says so, I’ll go along with it.”

Feared and respected, loved but at the same time hated, Medina crossed swords in October 1999 with Roman Catholic priest Minor de Jesús Calvo, head of the now defunct radio station Radio María, which became a mass medium unprecedented in the history of the Central American country.

Two years after the murder, the investigation has turned up few results, despite the optimistic words at the time of the Public Prosecutor’s Office. The OIJ, Costa Rica’s criminal investigation police, insists that it has solved the crime, but has offered no evidence.

On the second anniversary of the death details that have been gathered so far would appear to point to a businessman close to Radio María as the possible mastermind, but Costa Rican Attorney General Carlos Arias Núñez says that “in 20 years the Public Prosecutor’s Office has not been able to bring the mastermind of any murder to justice.”

Three suspects have been detained in the case. They are Colombian John Gilberto Gutiérrez Ramírez, Costa Rican Adrián Chaves Matarrita and Nicaraguan Luis Alberto Aguirre Jaime. But they remain only suspects and have not been charged.

In response to questions from the press officials in charge of the case have resorted to an unusual silence. Prosecutor Leda Méndez, regarded as an iron lady in the Public Prosecutor’s Office, has orders from above not to talk to the media – a gag that also applies to the members of the investigating team.

Despite the shortcomings, the Costa Rican press is attempting to carry out a parallel investigation of its own.

The refusal to talk annoys the Citizens Anti-Impunity Front, an organization made up of representatives of various community groups that is calling for answers. It has accused the police of scheduling high-profile operations every time an anniversary of the murder approaches – an action that the organization says is designed to district the public’s attention from the investigation.

The silence has also jarred the nerves of Costa Rica’s President Abel Pacheco, who in September 2002 gave the Public Prosecutor’s Office until December this year to solve the case and threatened to turn to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of the United States for help. But the president’s stance angered Attorney General Carlos Arias, who responded by declaring, “We work responsibly, not to deadlines.” The threat ended up becoming an anecdote: President Pacheco never mentioned the matter again.

Radio María

Possessing the gift of the gab and having a charismatic personality, Father Minor de Jesús Calvo in March 1999 managed to bring his most ambitious project to reality – Radio María.

With the sponsorship of businessman Omar Chaves, the priest catapulted the station to undreamed-of success. Donations to the Roman Catholic station, all of them very generous, flooded in.

A report issued by the criminal investigation police’s economic offenses division says that between February 1999 and July 2001 Father Calvo recorded activity in his personal bank accounts amounting to the equivalent approximately $4 million.

From the third floor of a downtown San José building the broadcasts of the radio station created a fanaticism among the listeners. Father Calvo became a public personality.

“I leased them only the third floor,” recalls Chester Patterson, the then owner of the building, “but thy took over the whole building. The elevator and the corridors were constantly full of people – people shouting as if they were in a trance. They ended up putting loudspeakers in the building, producing a deafening noise.”

Provision of documents by a former staff member at the station spelled the beginning of the end of the priest’s house of cards.

There began arriving at Medina’s desk reports of alleged mishandling of money in the radio station’s coffers. On October 22, 1999, his exposé program brought the allegations to light and the storm erupted. Radio María took on “La Patada:” face-to-face.

Things heated up. Father Calvo’s acolytes came out in his defense, while the majority of the public supported Medina.

The fight got worse. For several months “La Patada” continued revealing new irregularities. “In 2000 and 2001 Mr. Medina Pérez among other things accused Radio María of being a means of defrauding our Catholic community, no matter of what class, kind or situation,” says report number 681-INV-OI of the criminal investigation police.

The charged atmosphere reached a climax in October 2000, when Medina’s radio program reported on an incident in the La Sabana city park in the Costa Rican capital.

During a nighttime patrol, police officers surprised Father Calvo in the company of a young man. While the matter might not have had any significance, the fact is that the place was known as a hangout of homosexuals.

“La Patada” reported the police action. Father Calvo found himself at a crossroads, claiming that he was giving the young man driving lessons.

“I have been the victim of the most ignominious offenses and lies that have ever been made against me,” the priest declared.

Death threats against Medina did not take long in coming. “Stop bothering Father Minor and Radio María. You are the devil personified,” an anonymous telephone caller told him.

On November 6, 2000, Medina revealed that a group of foreigners were planning to kill him. But he gave no details. A number of news media, among them the newspaper Al Día and the television station Repretel, reported his words.

Four months later, the threat was direct. In a serous voice, a caller identifying himself only as “Carlos” and speaking with a Colombian accent warned him to stop his investigation of Radio María.

“There are people financially affected. There’s a lot of money and a lot of people being harmed by these comments,” someone says on a tape recording that police found at Medina’s home.

On May 9, 2001, unidentified persons shot at Medina’s house in San Luis de Santo Domingo, Heredia province (some five miles from the capital). The bullets penetrated a window and were lodged in a wall. No one was injured.

Medina told police he believed a group of people associated with Radio María to have been responsible, among them businessman Omar Chaves, according to the official complaint record number 002-01-01521, which also states:

“He links the criminal act to his “La Patada” radio program which death with the subject of Father Minor Calvo and says that as a result of this he (Parmenio Medina) received a number of death threats.

“He says he is sure that the act was carried out by Omar Chaves and his cohorts, arguing that this is the person who was financing Radio María. This problem is of a financial nature and at the same time he wants it to be seen as having a religious origin.”

The Radio María controversy came to an end on May 28, 2001, when Father Calvo – without the consent of the Roan Catholic Church and secretly sold the radio station to a businessman whose identity remains unknown.

The sale-purchase was conducted by a city employee who went to Calvo’s apartment with the equivalent of $368,000) in cash. The station, acquired by a company called El Papiro Inversiones Suramericanas, changed its name to La Paz del Dial (Peace on the Dial).

In inquiring into the monies, investigators concluded that “Father Minor Calvo was the only one responsible for the radio station business and it is not possible to determine where the money raised went once Radio María shut down.” Police believe the investigation concerning suspected mishandling of radio funds – which later would implicate the Costa Rican Roman Catholic Church in the worst scandal in its history – has something to do with the murder. (The handling of the funds remains under investigation.)

Two months later (July 2001), Medina was killed. He was shot at from a moving vehicle about 200 feet from his home. He could have survived, as the bullets did not hit any vital organ – two struck him in the face, one in the back. One of the bullets, however, struck his false teeth and was deflected to the carotid artery (in the neck). Medina died from loss of blood.

Case File Number 681-INV-01

Police have based their investigation on testimony in the absence of material evidence, such as the revolver or the Nissan vehicle used by the killers, both of which have not yet appeared.

The inquiries have left big holes that seem to be getting bigger, especially concerning the quality of the principal witnesses from the Public Prosecutor’s Office who had some relationship to the suspects in the crime.

One of these is the girlfriend of César Dionisio Murillo, a.k.a. “Nicho,” named in the police report as the alleged leader of the group of killers. The other is a former police officer with a criminal record who was the chauffeur of one of the suspects. The names of the informants remain secret, given the death threats.

They testified against Colombian John Gilberto Gutiérrez, named as allegedly the person who hired the killers), Adrián Chaves Matarrita, said to be the river of the getaway car, and Luis Alberto Aguirre Jaime, one of the alleged killers.

They also mentioned César Dionisio “Nicho” Murillo, but he could not be called in by police as he died in May 2002 during a bloody bank holdup. Other witnesses also referred to Father Calvo, but the Public Prosecutor’s Office has not yet charged him, saying that for the moment his is merely helping them in their inquiries.

Plans overheard

The Public Prosecutor Office’s star witnesses said that the group planned the murder in a humble house in Cariari de Pococi, some 50 miles from the Costa Rican capital.

The mastermind – the police case file does not contain any clear, direct reference to who the suspect may be – is said to have hired Colombian John Gilberto Gutiérrez to come up with a group that silence Medina.

The informants said they had overheard conversations in which the attack was planned. “They met in the living room of my home and on a number of occasions I heard that they a person had contracted them to kill a journalist who was creating a lot of problems. In the third meeting I could hear that his name was Parmenio Medina,” Nicho’s girlfriend told police.

The former police officer meanwhile testified hat “Nicho said that what was going to be discussed was a very delicate matter. He recalled that the threats and the warning to Medina not had produced any result, so they had to act in another way. The boss ordered that ( ….) to be killed.” He went on to say that he himself had turned down an offer to take part in the murder.

The group had begun staking our Medina’s home two months before the murder. On July 7, 2001, the group, riding in a light blue old model Nissan with tinted windows, killed Medina as he was approaching his home.

So far, the strongest evidence seems to point to the Nicaraguan, Luis Alberto Aguirre Jaime, a.k.a. “El Indio” (The Indian). Five people identified him in police lineups and from photos as the driver of the car. Among the witnesses is an acquaintance of his who saw him about 500 yards from Medina’s home at the time of the murder. He testified, “On the day of Mr. Medina’s death I was parked near his home, outside a garage … when the Nissan vehicle passed by and I could see the driver and I immediately knew it was ‘El Indio.’ At the time I did not say it was he because I was scared.”

Many questions, few answers

Despite what the statements have turned up, the investigation has fallen apart – there is plenty of oral testimony, nothing material.

The defense attorney for Colombian John Gilberto Gutiérrez Ramírez – the persona alleged to have hired the killers – struck a strong blow against what the witnesses had proclaimed when he presented a copy of a contract that shows César Dionisio “Nicho” Murillo rented the house in Cariari (where the murder was said to have been plotted) until October 10, 2001.

This produced a string of doubts about the version of the state attorneys’ key witnesses – if the house was rented until October, the meetings to plan the murder could not have taken placed there.

Suspects John Gilberto Gutiérrez Ramírez, Adrián Chaves Matarrita and Luis Alberto Aguirre Jaime remain in custody, while the state attorney’s office has initiated certain proceedings against Father Minor de Jesús Calvo as two witnesses claim – according to the case file – that Calvo had an interest in silencing Medina.

In July this year, police officer from the criminal investigation division raided the priest’s home in Cartago province, 14 miles from San José. They were looking for the typewriter used to write the death threats against Medina.

They also took blood samples for DNA testing to compare with the saliva sample taken from one of the envelopes containing the death threats. The tests ruled out the priest.

The Costa Rican church hierarchy has held to its decision not to put Calvo in charge of any parish, although he can still conduct Mass. He currently travels abroad frequently, with the clergy’s permission, to take part in various religious activities.

Impunity

The investigation appears to have stalled. The Costa Rican government has not called for results. Thee of the chief protagonists have left the case or are about to do so. The first was police investigation division chief, Lineth Saborío, who in May 2002 became the vice president of Costa Rica.

Attorney General Carlos Arias Núñez and the chief prosecutor, Leda Méndez, are about to move on and neither will talk to the press. Arias took retirement in September, while Méndez in November takes on a new job overseeing the duties and discipline of court officials. Both, however, have offered to remain in their current posts until the case is solved.

Then investigation will now be handled by prosecutor Gisele Rivera, a career public official who has had run-ins with her staff. The Judiciary Superior Council has unsuccessfully sought to remove her from her post.

As for identifying and bringing the mastermind of the murder to justice, the attorney general himself has made it clear that the chances are slight. “There are many obstacles to a judge accepting incriminatory evidence if it is not overwhelming. In any investigation there are advances and setbacks. The Public Prosecutor’s Office is trying to solve this case, but we have brakes that are holding it back.”

The investigation by police and the state attorney’s office has not satisfied reporters. A poll on press freedom and access to information in late May 2002, sponsored by the San José newspaper La Nación, was clear: of a sample of 81 journalists, 58 believe Medina’s death will remain unsolved. The poll in addition shows that 73% feel the authorities have not done what is needed to solve the case, while 92% say the crime is directly related to what Medina exposed. For 88% the murder will have a negative impact on reporting in Costa Rica.

Significantly, 57% confess to being fearful following the murder. Three journalists (Otto Vargas of La Nación, Paola Hernández and Hellen Zúñiga of Diario Extra) have received death threats for what they have written about the murder of their colleague Medina.