Colombia: Imprisoned journalist Joaquín Pérez Becerra speaks
By Dick Emanuelsson and Ingrid Storgen, ANNCOL
In his first interview after his eight-year prison sentence was handed down by a Colombian court, the director of the New Colombia News Agency (ANNCOL), Joaquín Pérez Becerra, analyzes the case, judgment and sentence against him.
“The prosecution failed to prove its case and the judge sentenced me without a single test. The judge violated due process rights to a defense of fundamental rights and the presumption of innocence, freedom of expression and all rights to human dignity which are essential. In conclusion, we are facing a political failure.”
That is the central summary of Joaquín Pérez Becerra in the following interview with ANNCOL, commenting on the judgment.
“I am innocent of the charges. The prosecution failed to prove anything and he (the judge) condemned me without convincing evidence.”
In practice, he says, the judge sentenced him with information that a researcher gathered off the Internet.
“The prosecution never presented documents showing that I had direct or indirect contact with the FARC. It never showed that I ever met with Raúl Reyes and Iván Márquez [commanders of the FARC Secretariat]. The same investigator said he did not know whether or not I had met with them. They never showed circumstantial facts, i.e., that at such a time, in such a place, there has been a voluntary agreement to strengthen FARC armed organization, and so on. I was identified as a participant in the International Committee of the FARC based on lies, assumptions and speculations.”
It is tragicomic that at this time loaded with technological advances, “justice” should appeal to Googling files pages that will be used, then, to convict a person.
And the worst is that judges are able to lower the hammer knowing that the only evidence the accuser found against a popular fighter is based on this tool that often becomes obscene when “justice” is invoked.
Joaquín Pérez Becerra is in prison and went through a trial full of irregularities; as many as those that occurred when he was arrested in Venezuela, from which he departed rather forcefully and immediately, between roosters and dawn, heading to the country of his birth, and as it has done over the years with thousands of other strugglers and fighters.
Rodolfo Rios, attorney for Joaquin Perez, was forbidden to take part of the evidence to be examined to make preparations for the appeal that the defense has asked for in the judgment against Joaquin. The court refused to give evidence on the grounds that it was the judge who authorized it. And he was gone.
“Because I have no way to prove my innocence, they have to prove my guilt, and did not. It is a universal principle worldwide. I am not guilty of anything unlawful or illegal, in Sweden and in Europe, not even in Colombia. I have never committed a crime.
“Since 1995 I have not been to Colombia. The last time I stepped on Colombian soil was that year, when I was invited by the Patriotic Union (UP) to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Patriotic Union and the genocide against my fellow UP members. It was an event in Plaza Bolivar led by Aida Abella, national president of the UP. There she gave a speech from the stands of the Cathedral in the Plaza Bolivar”
In Sweden, the country that accepted him as a citizen after pursuit, he is an employee, and has no property of any kind.
“I have my salary as anyone has in Sweden, I live with my family but I have no fortunes or villa (mansion). What is undeniable is that I developed my activity on the theme of solidarity with Colombia. And therein lies the ANNCOL page denouncing what happens in that land. No country in the world can say that I made some kind of crime.”
To effectuate his conviction, the prosecutor presented a case full of irregularities, contradictions and inconsistency, but could not reach any damning evidence. He favored the use of informants, which as you can imagine, opened their big mouths only to lie.
For example, a disgruntled man said knew Joaco from their participation in the Communist Youth (JUCO). However, he lacked evidence to prove it and could not, for it was an atrocious lie. Joaco, while living in Colombia, was within the ranks of the Communist Party and not within the structure of the Communist Youth (JUCO ).
In Stockholm Joaco met this “toad” hired as an informant, but never exchanged a word with him.
“The Stockholm toad said I had met him in Caquetá (department in southern Colombia). But I’ve never been there. He said I had been recruited by JUCO Headquarters (Communist Youth). I never belonged to JUCO, I directly joined the Communist Party of Colombia (PCC). He said he called me in Stockholm on orders from Romagna [FARC commander that has nothing to do with international relations]. And he said he had called me.
“That’s not true, I never talked to that guy. I met him at an event in Stockholm of the Left Party (Vänsterpartiet, former Swedish Communist Party) and I found him repugnant. I never had contact with him. He’s a liar, prepared by Mr. Lopez Pidiachi, a researcher at the Stockholm prosecutor, who was trying to induce him to speak against me.”
According to Joaco, the “Stockholm Toad” is part of a network of informants in Europe tasked to pursue and do intelligence against PCC exiles, UP and other movements and opposition parties, Colombian victims of state terrorism living there.
“I, Joaquin Perez, I will protest to the Swedish government for libel, slander and falsehood.”
Joaco, given the tremendous suffering and injustice of the situation, says with finality of one who knows that it is through the lie that you can condemn anyone, exclaims:
“I will denounce the Colombian state as a slanderer, supported by false testimony that violated all principles, which is something very serious, as has managed to convince the judge for final resolution.”
And there are witnesses to everything they have done to achieve the conviction, he said. The complaint shall be made to the Swedish state for libel, defamation and falsehood. The complaint will cover the whole of the Colombian state, to appeal to such people as tools that strengthen lies and defamation.
Recently Colombian drug lord ‘Loco’ Barrera was captured in Venezuela. Barrera was not extradited to Colombia with the urgency with which Joaquin was extradited (72 hours after his capture) and who has been imprisoned already for 17 months and sentenced to eight years.
“I am a Marxist, Leninist and Bolivarian. These coincidences with the FARC do not make me a member of this insurgent organization. For me the FARC acts as a serious political force, putting forward possible proposals to resolve the internal conflict. This finding does not automatically make me a FARC militant. Today the government plans negotiations with FARC, a civilized scenario I applaud enthusiastically.”
He vowed to do everything in his power to continue and strengthen the work of ANNCOL.
Original text in Spanish
Translated by redguard
