Posts Tagged ‘El Salvador’
June 8th, 2012
Gang member Jonathan Martínez Castro was
sentenced to 30 years in prison by a San Salvador court on 31 May for the murder of Canal 33 cameraman Alfredo Hurtado. Two gunmen shot Hurtado while he was visiting Ilopango, on the outskirts of the Salvadorian capital, on 25 April 2011. Hurtado had often covered gang member arrests, and it has been reported that the Mara Salvatrucha gang, of which Martínez Castro was a member, had suspected Hurtado had identified two of its members to the police as the murderers of another gangster. Martínez Castro’s alleged accomplice, Marlon Abrego Rivas, is currently a fugitive.
October 4th, 2011
Salvadoran president
Mauricio Funes has shown his support for a reform bill to
decriminalise defamation, but only if certain changes are implemented. Funes, an
ex-journalist, has largely supported the decree to substitute the penalty of imprisonment for crimes against public image and privacy, with monetary fines. But the reform, which was approved by the legislative assembly on 8 September, also suggests suspending journalists for up to two years, should they be found guilty of a crime against someone’s honour, and the president has suggested that this condition be removed.
March 11th, 2011
A court in El Salvador has
convicted 11 people for the 2009
murder of French journalist and filmmaker Christian Poveda. Two gang leaders were sentenced to 30 years in prison. Two other leaders have been jailed for 20 years, whilst the remaining seven face four years in prison. Poveda had made a film about street gang violence in El Salvador. The length of the trial caused
consternation in certain quarters, with two days deemed insufficient to reach such a verdict.
September 11th, 2009
On 10 September four men suspected of killing Franco-Spanish journalist Christian Poveda in El Salvador were arrested. One of suspects is a police officer. The other three are members of Mara 18, a street gang that Poveda filmed for this 2008 documentary La Vida Loca. According to police, the journalist’s murder was ordered by a jailed member of the gang who believed him to be a police informant.
Read more
here
September 4th, 2009
The killing of documentary maker Christian Poveda represents a sad loss for a region much in need of greater understanding, writes Deborah Bonello
(more…)
