Former AUC paramilitary commander “Don Berna” has implicated a senior intelligence official in the 1999 assassination of journalist Jaime Garzon, reported Colombian media Monday.
According to Diego Fernando Murillo, alias Don Berna, then-Assistant Director of Colombia’s DAS intelligence service Jose Miguel Narvaez was complicit in the assassination of Garzon
Murillo’s testimony claims that Narvaez was not content with the original assassination plan prepared by then-AUC commander Carlos Castaño, and colluded to provide military intelligence regarding Garzon’s work and travel activities to facilitate the assassination.
According to Murillo the crime was planned in a rural location in the northwestern department of Cordoba, which was Castaño’s headquarters at the time.
On Friday August 13 in 1999 Garzon was driving to work when two men on a motorbike with hidden plates rode up to his car and shot him five times. The death of the popular journalist, comedian, presenter and peace activist caused an outpouring of grief in Colombia and has remained one of the most prominent unsolved assassinations of recent decades.