Equipo Nizkor -Following gag order journalist Claudia Julieta Duque will not be present during criminal proceedings and challenges the competence of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP).

November 17th of 2019 marked the fifteenth anniversary of the worst persecution and torture executed at the hands of the Administrative Department of Security (DAS) of the Presidency of Colombia against journalist Claudia Julieta Duque: the terrifying phone call made by a DAS official identified by Duque that to this day has not been investigated that warned the journalist of the next target in the strategy to silence, her daughter.

Fifteen years later and despite the poor progress for some time used by the Colombian government to justify its impunity (eight former agents face trial, three convicted after accepting charges, one under investigation and an investigation ordered against a former DAS director and former president Alvaro Uribe), Team Nizkor denounces new maneuvers in motion to achieve court closure and silence Claudia Julieta Duque.

Since October 2017 when the case was declared a crime against humanity, subsequent decisions plagued by irregularities confirmed the denial of justice in the case of Claudia Julieta Duque as a new strategy against the journalist that threatens to reach prosecution against Duque:

In November 2017 the Fifth Delegated Prosecutor before the Supreme Court of Justice Eberto Rodríguez Hernandez shelved the case against former DAS Director Jorge Noguera Cotes without considering the evidence in the files of the proceedings. This decision unequivocally severed the investigation into the chain of command that should have led to the former president and current senator Alvaro Uribe Velez.
Also, in November of 2017, the trial against Rodolfo Medina Aleman (former DAS counterintelligence director) and Ronal Harbey Rivera Rodriguez (Special Intelligence Group 3 detective) came to an end and to this date a first-instance judgment has not been reached. The only detainee, Rivera Rodriguez was released due to the expiration of terms in July 2018.
In December 2017 the 53rd prosecutor of the Specialized Office Against Human Rights Violations, Catherine Naranjo Sierra (designated two days prior as supporting prosecutor in the process), ordered the release of Nestor Pachon Bermudez, former DAS detective accused in October 2017. The determination was brought forth during the prosecution judicial holidays through an appeal for review recourse although according to the law the recourse should have been suspended until the end of the judicial recess. Although the victim and her lawyer submitted the nullity in the face of this irregularity the petition was stagnant a year until December 2018 when the Second Specialized Criminal Judge Nidia Angelica Carrero Torres ruled against it out of time, when it was meaningless in its purpose.
During 2018 all proceedings were stagnant except for absurd decisions such as the one made in July by prosecutor 189th of the Specialized Office Against Human Rights Violations, Gilma Amparo Duarte Rodriguez who ordered that the clinical psychiatric and medical records of Claudia Julieta Duque be submitted aiming to contrast them with the physical and mental impact that "exclusively derived" from the torture while insinuating that the journalist suffered some type of pre-existing psychic illness. Although the order was reversed by the prosecutor in response to a request submitted by the journalist´s lawyer it caused months-long serious revictimization that made recovery difficult as it was the first indication of what was to come: the intention of subjecting Claudia Julieta Duque to investigation in the processes where she is the victim.
In December 2018 the preparatory hearings began, in two different trials against the accused Nestor Pachon Bermudez, Emiro Rojas Granados (former DAS deputy director) and William Alberto Merchan Lopez (hacker and counterintelligence detective), amid new revictimizations: the lawyers for Rojas and Merchan requested as evidence to favor the defendants an investigation into all the organizations and individuals that have provided support to the journalist since her first exile in 2001 and to summon her closest relatives, including her daughter, a direct victim of the events. The journalist achieved a refusal to these requests thanks to her lawyer´s efforts and the statement provided at one of the trials pointing out the alleged evidence requested did not aim to challenge the indictment but attack the journalist and those that have provided protection throughout the years.
Days later Emiro Rojas was set free due to the expiration of terms. The same followed for William Alberto Merchan. In a matter of months all the accused under prosecution were set free irregularly or legally or as a result of being a fugitive of justice for years such as former intelligence director Giancarlo Auque, former counterintelligence director Rodolfo Medina Aleman and at state prosecution level former G-3 Group coordinator Juan Carlos Sastoque. Both of the accused Enrique Ariza, former intelligence chief, and Jose Miguel Narvaez, G-3 advisor and founder and former DAS deputy director are deprived of their freedom in different processes. In the meantime, in Claudia Julieta Duque´s case, the trial has not made significant progress since March 2018.
In 2019 the judge of the cases, Nidia Angelica Carrero Torres, imposed censorship on Claudia Julieta Duque with the excuse that the journalist had violated the rights of the accused Emiro Rojas Granados by insinuating that the defendant lied during the April 24 hearing (according to this justification the Supreme Court would have to gag senator Ivan Cepeda for calling lies the declarations made by Alvaro Uribe on the trial the former president faces for bribery and procedural fraud) and offended "the majesty of justice" for criticizing the impunity within the process and the judge's actions in particular.
Between August and September, the accused Juan Carlos Sastoque, Rodolfo Medina Aleman, Jose Miguel Narvaez, and Enique Alberto Ariza Rivas requested that their cases be transferred to the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) without demonstrating in any way a relation between the torture against Duque and the armed conflict. Such a link is absent in over 42 thousand files that make up the case.
Last September Luis Carlos Hoyos Quimbayo, the lawyer representing Jose Miguel Narvaez accused Claudia Julieta Duque of being responsible for alleged aggression against Narvaez on September 21st in Bogota. At the time the journalist was traveling. Judge Carrero however, sent copies to investigate the accusations and ordered that the attorney be protected opening a door to a new chapter in the case: a probable litigation process against the journalist for refusing to be censored or accused of inexistent threats committed against an attorney that was not involved in the case in over a year.

Although Judge Carrero considers "unacceptable" to denounce a closure to justice this summary indicates that in the case of Claudia Julieta Duque it is possible to foresee an upcoming closure to justice in the denial of justice for nearly all her demands to establish the full truth and punishment for all responsible for the torture and persecution against the journalist.

Ordinary justice failed in its duty to process the accused within a reasonable period and they were all freed. One accused was released due to irregularities and others were set free as a result of situations that facilitated their escape and to this date, no authority has been able to capture them.

Fifteen years after the worse acts of torture and 18 years after being kidnapped the consolidation of impunity resides in the lack of results in many aspects: in the individualization and identification of the chain of command involved and of the individual that made the November 17 2004 phone call, the material authors behind the kidnappings and multiple threatening phone calls, monitoring, surveillance and harassment actions endured by the journalist among other persisting questions.

Despite the order and statements made by judge Carrero Torres, it is undeniable that the impunity has won this battle. Judicial operators have paved the way for impunity through actions or omission. It is enough to recall that since 2015 the requests submitted to include in the investigation more than 15 DAS and 3 Ministry of Internal Affairs officials have been met with no negative nor affirmative reply to this day.

The request to be accepted into the JEP that was submitted by the accused also does not guarantee justice as this jurisdiction is the most sophisticated mechanism of court closure and a full stop of the Colombian Justice when it comes to State Crimes and DAS will not be an exception. The case of Claudia Julieta is unrelated to the armed conflict and concerns freedom of the press and freedom of opinion.

No indictment nor process decisions make any mention of the armed conflict. However, the 73rd Specialized (supporting) Prosecutor Nathalie Gil Rodriguez accepted the transfer of the Juan Carlos Sastoque case (the only official in connection to the investigation) to JEP generating a rupture in the procedural unity when the delegate of the prosecution was away on vacation.

The objections introduced by the journalist's legal representation against judge Carrero were ruled without a legal analysis after three months of trial stagnation. The journalist's case with just one exception is the oldest case of 77 in this office and the slowest. After the accusations made by Claudia Julieta Duque regarding the delay in the trials she has been muzzled through a shameful ideological statement that violates the basic principles of freedom of speech of a journalist and victim whose work has fostered and promoted the very few judicial results that are now being pushed back.

While it is true that for some years Justice was key to the psychologic and emotional recovery of Claudia Julieta Duque it currently poses as a scenario of revictimization through the silencing, the delay and the verbal and legal attacks from the accused and their attorneys. Today Justice stands by the perpetrators.

Currently, the two jurisdictions do not provide guarantees of participation and justice for Claudia Julieta Duque as a victim. Ordinary justice has become a beneficiary regime for the accused and the JEP is a tribunal of exception that leads to impunity in the name of peace and does not acknowledge that peace is not possible without justice.

For these reasons Team Nizkor informs the public the following:

1. Claudia Julieta Duque decided to suspend her participation in the criminal trial except for the November 26 hearing that will decide on the appeal for review regarding the order of censorship against the journalist and she will not be present at the trials on the torture she was a victim of.
2. Claudia Julieta Duque and her attorney will appear before the JEP exclusively to challenge its competence for these cases.
3. The journalist will continue denouncing the impunity surrounding not just her case but most violations to human rights in Colombia and will refuse to obey the court order of the second judge silencing her.

Team Nizkor stands by the decision made by our representative in Colombia and we denounce that it is a result of a successful strategy that wants the case to come to an end in impunity. Claudia Julieta Duque has the right to live the next 18 years of her life far from judicial stands that are insensitive to the plight of a victim that suffered three exiles, multiple and continuous attacks, and setbacks and revictimization that despite everything have all failed to subdue her will.

Documentation Note: Translation from the Spanish original version by Karen Cepeda.

18Nov19

Following gag order journalist Claudia Julieta Duque will not be present during criminal proceedings and challenges the competence of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP)

[Source: Team Nizkor, Charleroi, Madrid and Bogota, November 18, 2019]

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