JANUARY 6, 2005
Posted: March 23, 2005
Luis Aguirre Pastor, La Voz de Madre de Dios
LEGAL ACTION
Aguirre, a radio journalist based in the city of Puerto Maldonado in the southern Madre de Dios region, could be barred from working as a journalist for a year after an appeals court upheld his September 2003 conviction on criminal defamation charges.
On January 6, 2005, a three-judge panel of the Superior Court of Madre de Dios dismissed an appeal filed by Aguirre and upheld a lower court ruling that convicted him of criminal defamation, gave him a two-year suspended jail sentence, and ordered him to pay a fine.
His lawyer filed a second appeal on February 18, and it will be heard by another three-judge panel of the Superior Court of Madre de Dios, Aguirre told CPJ. His sentence did not take effect while the appeal was pending.
The case stems from reports Aguirre aired in February 2002 on his news program "La Voz de Madre de Dios" (The Voice of Madre de Dios), broadcast by La Voz Amazónica radio station in Puerto Maldonado. Basing his report on police records and sources, Aguirre alleged that a local lawyer had once led a criminal gang that stole motorcycles.
The lawyer allegedly acquired a stolen motorcycle but was never convicted. He filed a criminal complaint against Aguirre in February 2003, claiming he had been defamed.
In September 2003, Judge Fredy Vengoa Zúñiga, of the Second Court of Puerto Maldonado, convicted Aguirre of criminal defamation, sentenced him to two years in prison, and ordered him to pay a fine of US$3,000 in civil damages. Aguirre's prison sentence was immediately suspended and he was required to sign a judicial register at the Second Court of Puerto Maldonado once a month.
As an additional punishment, Aguirre was barred from working as a journalist for a year. Vengoa defended his decision to bar Aguirre from working, saying that Aguirre did not have a journalism degree and wasn't a member of any journalists' trade association.
JANUARY 19, 2005
Posted: March 1, 2005
Julio Jara Ladrón de Guevara, El Comercio
LEGAL ACTION
Jara, editor and publisher of the daily El Comercio, based in the southern city of Cusco, was convicted of criminal defamation charges brought by a former government official. He received a one-year suspended sentence.
Rafael Córdova, who worked as an advisor to Cusco regional authorities until December 2002, filed a criminal defamation lawsuit against Jara in November 2004, according to José Alberto Ordóñez, political editor for El Comercio.
The case stems from comments Cusco congressman Manuel Figueroa made to the press on October 3, 2003, in which he denounced Córdova for allegedly defrauding peasants of money, Ordóñez told CPJ. Córdova, Figueroa claimed, was no longer working for government but had introduced himself as a government official and had convinced peasants to give him samples of handicraft to sell. Córdova never returned the handicraft, whose value was estimated at several thousands in U.S. dollars, Figueroa contended.
The following day, El Comercio described Figueroa's allegations in an article, Ordóñez said. More than a year later, Córdova filed a lawsuit claiming that El Comercio had intended to cause him harm. He also claimed Figueroa had never made the accusations.
At a January 19 hearing, Judge Miguel Ángel Castelo asked Jara to produce a recording of Figueroa's statements. El Comercio has a policy of keeping tape recordings for only two weeks, so Jara was unable to produce a recording, Ordóñez said. Based on this, Castelo found Jara guilty.
Jara appealed, but a hearing was not immediately scheduled. According to Ordóñez, Jara has obtained a letter from Figueroa confirming his October 2003 statements and saying that the El Comercio article was based on them.
MAY 4, 2005
Updated December 12, 2005
Sally Bowen, freelance
LEGAL ACTION, HARASSED
In May 2005, Judge Alfredo Catacora Acevedo found British freelance journalist Sally Bowen guilty of criminal defamation and ordered her and her publisher to pay $10,000 Peruvian soles (US$3,000) to businessman Fernando Zevallos. Catacora also sentenced Bowen to one year of probation and restricted her movements both within and outside of the country.
In June, after finding numerous irregularities in Catacora's handling of the trial, an appellate court overturned Bowen's conviction and ordered a retrial before a new judge.
In his criminal complaint, Zevallos said that Bowen, who is based in the capital, Lima, where she has lived for the last 16 years, and co-author Jane Holligan had irreparably harmed his image in their book, "The Imperfect Spy: The Many Lives of Vladimiro Montesinos." Proceedings were pending against Holligan, who lives in Scotland.
Zevallos' lawsuit revolved around a single sentence in the 493-page book, which details the activities of now-imprisoned former intelligence chief Vladimiro Montesinos. The book quotes an imprisoned U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration informant as saying Zevallos was a drug trafficker with close ties to Montesinos.
Catacora, in reaching his now-defunct verdict, said Zevallos had never been convicted of a crime. Zevallos, founder of the former AeroContinente airline, has denied drug trafficking allegations, although official accusations have dogged him for years. Drug trafficking charges against him were pending in Peru in late 2005; the U.S. government has labeled him a "significant foreign narcotics trafficker" and barred U.S. businesses and individuals from doing business with him.