judicial

Delgado, family disagree on murder investigation

jorge Fernández/la prensa

uncovered: Members of the Red Democracia Ciudadana gathered yesterday to call for the resignation of Daniel Delgado Diamante. The Ministerio Público has said it will investigate the case.1107129

Ministro de Gobierno y Justicia Daniel Delgado Diamante yesterday described the allegations that he murdered a fellow National Guard officer in 1970 as a work of fiction.

“They have written this as a novel,” he said, accusing the newspaper La Prensa as trying to damage his reputation with the story that he shot and killed Corporal Andrés García in his Panama Viejo home on Feb. 8, 1970.

But it was the government minister who was changing his story yesterday.

When the allegations first surfaced Monday, Delgado claimed that the incident had been fully investigated, and that military records would show that he had been arrested and detained while it was being carried out.

La Prensa, however, had obtained a copy of his military record that detailed his assignments throughout his military career. That record showed that Delgado, despite having served in the Panama Viejo barracks for less than a month, had been transferred to Panama City shortly after the shooting, and then to Veraguas. The document did not indicate that there had been any interruption in his service, or that he had been detained for any length of time.

Yesterday, Delgado said that the record of the investigation was included in his “military dossier,” and not in his service record.

In the interview, conducted with a television journalist, he declined to discuss the specifics of the events that led to García's death, stating that it was a police case and had been “fully investigated.”

Delgado's version of events, however, has been strongly disputed by García's widow, Jean Black, who has come forward 38 years after the shooting to seek justice for her dead husband.

She said that, if there had been a “full investigation,” the people carrying it out had failed to interview a key witness, namely herself. She heard the shots that killed her husband, as well as his statement to Delgado that he was unarmed shortly before they were fired.

“All of Panama Viejo saw the assassination,” Black said yesterday. “There were many people there, and no one was called to testify.”

García's sister, Teófila García, also said that her family was not aware of any investigation into the shooting.

“My mother went to her grave with this pain of not being able to do anything,” Teofilo García said.

Despite calls for his resignation, Delgado has pledged to remain in office.

The case may not be over, however, as Ministerio Público officials have announced that they will be investigating the murder.