Jaime Garzón

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Jaime Garzón while producing his politically charged satires TV show "Quac, El Noticiero" (Quac, the news). Poster by RTI (1995)

Jaime Garzón Forero (born October 24, 1960 in Bogotá, Colombia — Died August 13, 1999 in Bogotá) was a Colombian journalist, a comedian and political satirist.

[edit] TV work

He worked on various television parodies, becoming famous with the TV Show "Zoociedad" (Zoociety) in the 1980s which contained humor about materialistic society and politics. Garzón then started working on a TV Show called "¡Quac! El Noticero" in which he participated with the Colombian Actor Diego León Hoyos until 1997.

Garzón created many different and instantly recognizable fictional characters, the last of which was his debut as "Heriberto de la Calle", a shoe polisher who interviewed different personalities, including politicians.

[edit] Murder

On August 13, 1999, Garzón was murdered, allegedly by the AUC, a right-wing paramilitary organization, some time after they declared him a military objective. Carlos Castaño Gil, leader of the AUC, was later convicted in absentia for Garzón's murder, and sentenced to 38 years in prison.

According to Judge Julio Roberto Ballén Silva, the AUC reacted against his involvement in negotiations for the release of guerrilla-held hostages on behalf of their family members. There are several versions of what happened in the days preceding his murder, in one of them Jaime Garzón was informed of an order to assassinate him, he then contacted Castaño, who scheduled a meeting with him to take place just the day after his murder, and sent a counter order to abort the assassination. The order apparently either never reached the actual killers, or came after it was too late. This led some to speculate that the meeting was a trap [1].