MIAMI, Florida (January 9, 2007)—The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) today expressed surprise and regret that a convicted murderer of journalist Héctor Félix Miranda in Mexico could be freed from prison before serving his full sentence, a move it called “a new transgression that only increases impunity and does nothing to end the violence that has been unleashed against journalists in recent months.”


Since March 2004 the free-press organization, through the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), has sought what is technically known in law as an amicable agreement with the Mexican government in the Félix Miranda case after the case was submitted to the Commission in 1997. The IACHR recommended to the Mexican government that it make all efforts to solve the crime and in early 2004 Mexican officials, together with the IAPA, formed a task force to review the case file – an action that is ongoing. As part of its Anti-Impunity Project the IAPA has submitted 17 cases of journalists’ murders to the IACHR over the last decade.


The IAPA learned from the weekly Zeta in Tijuana that Antonio Vera Palestina, one of those found guilty of carrying out Félix Miranda’s murder on April 20, 1988, could be released early from prison under terms of the Penal Code in force at the time of the crime. Vera Palestina, sentenced to a 25-year term in 1991, has already filed a plea for release and it is believed it could be sanctioned shortly.


“I would appear to be a contradiction that at the same time steps are being taken to combat the impunity surrounding crimes against journalists decisions are being made that send conflicting messages to the murderers,” IAPA President Rafael Molina, editor of the Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, newspaper El Día, said.


The chairman of the IAPA’s Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information, Gonzalo Marroquín, from the Guatemala City, Guatemala, daily Prensa Libre, urged Mexican officials to take a more active and proper role “so that justice is served in one of the most important cases in the history of the Mexican press.”


“We are alarmed to find one more irregularity among so many others that the IAPA has pointed out in the legal proceedings in this case, and we continue to regret that there are no clear indications of who masterminded this crime,” Marroquín added.


The case of Félix Miranda, known as “Gato Félix” (Felix the Cat) had been kept in the public’s eye by his co-editor and colleague at Zeta, Jesús Blancornelas, who died on November 23. Since the murder in 1988 the newspaper published a weekly article on page one titled “Un Poco de Algo” (A Little Bit of Something), in which it repeatedly called upon the authorities to arrest those responsible for the murder.
Also convicted of the murder and sentenced to 27 years in prison was Victoriano Medina Moreno. The mastermind, however, has gone unidentified.