judicial

Victim’s family seeks money

Relatives of Alberto Bolívar Conte Magdaleno, a publicist and one of the leaders of the Cruzada Civilista that fought against the rise of the military dictatorship in the 1980s, continue to pursue the $500,000 settlement awarded them by a Panamanian court in December 2006.

That sum represented the damage done to Magdaleno’s publicity company headquarters in Bella Vista on September 22 1988, when it was attacked and destroyed by guerilla supporters of the military regime.

But the democracy and justice that Magdaleno had struggled for failed him in the end. On May 27, 2007, Magdaleno, who had been appointed chair of the Colegio Nacional de Periodistas, died from a pulmonary hemorrhage without seeing any of the compensation money.

Yesterday, his wife, Rita Burrel de Conte, said that the Ministerio de Economía y Finanzas (MEF) has refused to reply to her many letters.

The Magdaleno case is the second of its kind to be addressed this year. On Sept. 12, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights condemned the Panamanian government for the 1970 kidnapping and murder of the popular leader Heliodoro Portugal.

In the ruling, the Inter-American Court ordered the state to pay compensation to the Portugal family and to make a public acknowledgment of guilt. To date, the government has not fulfilled the court’s order, claiming that official investigations into the case are still underway.