by Rod Hughes

Three persons were sentenced yesterday in connection with the July 7, 2001, gangland-style murder of gadfly radio journalist Parmenio Medina. Businessman Omar Chaves was convicted of being the brains behind the killing and condemned to 35 years in prison. The accused triggerman, Luis Alberto “El Indio” Aguirre, was given a 30-year sentence. The trial was held in Heredia since the chamber in that town offers better security and more space.

Father Minor Calvo, a charismatic Catholic priest, was absolved of sharing Chaves’s guilt in the murder due to lack of evidence, but was condemned to 15 years for fraud in related evidence. He was convicted of using donations by the faithful to his Radio María station for his own private purposes. This, the prosecution had maintained, provided the motive for Calvo’s involvement with planning the murder. Although the motive was clear, the three-judge panel did not feel the prosecution made its case against Calvo as co-conspirator.

Medina. a transplanted Colombian, had established his news show, “La Patada,” on radio in 1998. “La Patada” means ·the kick” and certainly his irreverent treatment of some of the country’s sacred cows was a kick in the pants. When he zeroed in on Padre Minor, as Calvo was affectionately known, it was first because the popular radio priest was sighted in a well-known lovers’ lane in the capital in a car with a young man. Calvo’s explanation that he was teaching the young man to drive was greeted by Medina’s derision. Then, Medina began probing Radio María’s income and its use.

The sarcastic, abrasive Medina was the target of death threats and shots were fired at his home. For some months, he traveled armed and with a bodyguard. But he carried no protection when he left home July 7, 2001. He was within a block or two of his house when his car was ambushed and he was slain by multiple gunshots. The crime shocked the country, which had never lost a journalist specifically targeted in this way.The InterAmerican Press Association has been following the case closely. Unique also for this country, both prosecutors and judges received death threats, as did witnesses.

.The trial in Heredfia, begun Dec. 6, 2006, one of the longest in recent history, is still is not finished. The sentences will undergo a careful automatic review and will not be “firm,” in Costa Rican judicial parlance, until the results of the review are announced Jan. 30. The attorneys for both Chaves and Calvo vow to appeal as well. The conviction, if it passes muster, will not mean that the condemned will spend all the time in prisoned that the verdict implies. Their time already spent in prison will be deducted and a judicial “year” of a sentence lasts only 10 months.

Even before the murder, Padre Minor Calvo was controversial. His use of funds generated by donations was questioned not long after Radio María was founded. At first, the late Archbishop Román Arrieta, backed Calvo in the face of accusations. Later, though, in an unprecedented statement on television, the archbishop looked directly at the camera and said in sad reproach, “Padre Minor, I covered your back for you.” Arrieta did not go into detail about what he meant but later the Catholic Church’s Episcopal Council considered that the archbishop, soon to retire, exercised an excess of Christian mercy. Arrieta maintained to the end that Padre Minor did not conspire with the perpetrators in the Medina murder.

Five more men implicated in the assassination were declared not guilty but only three were released. The other two have unfinished business with the court on other counts. As with many criminal trials anywhere, the judges were confronted by dubious testimony from witnesses with criminal records.