Annotations for Subject-headings: Murder

This is Maria Hinojosa. In February of 1991, a hard-hitting newspaper reporter and radio commentator was assassinated in New York City. Many theories have since surfaced as to who had reasons to kill Manuel de Dios Unanue. The combative journalist had written about corruption in Puerto Rico and angered anti-Castro groups by advocating better relations between the US and Cuba. Now, as Mandalit del Barco reports from New York, law authorities are linking the De Dios's murder to a Colombian cocaine cartel.

A special investigative team called Redrum, that's murder spelled backwards, is looking into reports that notorious drug lord, Joses Santacruz Londaño put out a $20,000 bounty on Manuelo De Dios Unanue. US attorney Mary Jo White announced the indictments of two Colombian men in the killing of the journalist known as an anti-drug crusader.

It is believed that the order for this murder came from the highest levels of the Cali cartel in Columbia. It is believed that De Dios was killed because of his vigorous reporting on the activities of the Cali cartel.

For years, De Dios worked to investigate and expose international reports of drugs and crime, first as editor of New York's largest Spanish language newspaper El Diario, and later as the publisher of two crime magazines. In 1991, he was shot point-blank while sitting in his favorite restaurant in Queens. Richard Brown is the district attorney from Queens who worked with federal agents on the case.

The same tactics repeatedly used by Colombian cocaine traffickers in South America to silence their critics, were used here. He was killed because he had the courage to speak out. Because he exercised his first amendment rights as a journalist.

After De Dios was killed, there was some concern that law enforcers had not moved enough to solve his murder. Some said that, had De Dios been an English language journalist, the investigation would've moved faster. Many journalists like Juan Gonzalez pressed for more action by the investigators.

If the people who they've arrested are the right people and are the guilty parties, then I think it's going to be, it's going to send a message, obviously, that you're not going to be able to get away with this kind of stuff in the United States. Hopefully that will have a deterrent effect on any kind of a drug syndicates in the future.

While killings of journalists in this country are rare, that's not the case in many Latin American countries. Blanca Rosa Vilchez reports out of New York for Univision Television, which broadcasts throughout the Americas.

When I left Peru in 1983, I thought that by leaving Peru and leaving Latin America, just the idea of getting killed in a mission was going to be gone and I was going to leave that feeling in the international airport in Lima, and actually I left, but the feeling still remains. And every time that a journalist gets killed, like in this situation, the feeling of being in a country like Peru or Colombia comes back to me and it's kind of difficult to say it, but the more they kill journalists, the more we fight back because we know that it has to be said. And even though it involves a great personal risk, this is what we are here for and we keep on doing it.

Some reporters and editors at De Dios's old newspapers say they're very much relieved by the investigation and the message this sends to would-be assassins. El Diario editor-in-chief Fernando Moreno says that the death of Manuel De Dios has actually inspired other reporters to follow his journalistic lead.

Because he was killed, many people who'd never dream of reporting on these issues are reporting now these issues. I mean, I think that's solidarity of the press show in this country and internationally with his killing has given new ideas and new investigators are coming out because they killed Manuel De Dios. So I think that instead of stopping the reporting on the issue has done completely the opposite.

Law enforcers are now trying to extradite the Colombians who allegedly ordered the killing of journalist Manuel De Dios Unanue. For Latino USA, I am Mandelita Delbarco in New York.