Calvo, Chaves Murder Trial Winding Up
by Rod Hughes
While the judges deliberate in the Burgos murder trial, another, much longer, murder trial is winding up this week with final summations. In this one, Fr. Minor Calvo, a controversial, once-popular Catholic priest, and businessman Calixto Chaves are accused of hiring the gunmen who murdered radio journalist Parmenio Medina.
Medina was gunned down gangland style as he left his home in his car in July, 2001. He had received death threats connected with his investigations for his lively and irreverant news show, although just what he was investigating is not known for certain.
Yesterday, prosecutor Guiselle Rivera asked the three-judge panel trying the high-profile case to sentence both Calvo and Chaves to 51 years in prison each for allegedly menacing, pursuing and finally ordering Medina’s death. *Costa Rican law limits sentences to 35 years, but a longer sentence prevents them from being released early for good behavior.)
The trial of the accused began Dec. 5, 2005, but due to the number of defendants, has proceeded at a slow pace due to the amount of evidence turned up by investigators in three and a half years and the number of defendants, eight, and defense attorneys, nine.
Rivera has asked the judges to dismiss charges against one defendant, Jorge Castillo, for “lamentably” a lack of evidence. But she is asking 30 years for John Gilberto Guitierrez as the alleged go-between the triggermen and Calvo and Chaves She is also asking the same sentences for the alleged gunmen,Luis Alberto Aguirre, Juan Gabriel Caravajal and Randal Gonzalez. The prosecutor is asking 20 year sentences for alleged complicity for Danny Smith and Juan Ramon Hernandez.
Smith is accused of having followed Medina as he left for work and Hernandez of having disposed the the vehicle used in the shooting.
The prosecution’s case is based upon the thesis that Medina had been using his radio show, La Patada, half satire and half investigative journalism, as a means to uncover Fr. Calvo’s misapprovpriation of funds collected by a religious radio station he had established, Radio Maria. Some of the millions of colones (hundreds of thousands of dollars) collected by the immensely popular station allegedly went into farms titled in the names of Calvo’s family members. Rivera named Chaves as the financial brains of the alleged Radio Maria scam.
Although Calvo and Chaves are accused of being the plotters of the murder, in her summary Riviera mentioned the mysterious person whose shadowy presence (but not identity) has hovered over the case. Before he was murdered, Medina had mentioned an unnamed political figure of the highest rank as being a menace. To Rivera, he (or she) was the “great absentee” in the proceedings.