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Alert

Judge allows defamation suit against journalist to proceed, despite prosecutor's decision to the contrary

(IPYS/IFEX) - During the first week of May 2006, Judge Jacinto Figueroa Salmorán, of Mexico City's Eleventh District Criminal Appeals Court, decided that a defamation complaint against journalist Sergio Sarmiento, filed on October 2003 by ex-consul Humberto Hernández Haddad, should proceed.His decision has come in spite of the fact that the Federal District Attorney General's Central Prosecutor of Investigations for Civil Servants (Fiscalía Central de Investigación para Servidores Públicos de la Procuraduría General del Distrito Federal) twice decided not to proceed with the case against Sarmiento. Judge Figueroa, however, granted Hernández Haddad, the plaintiff, an appeal against these resolutions.

The case goes back to 15 November 2002 when Sarmiento pointed out in his "Reforma" newspaper column "Jaque Mate", that Hernández Haddad had been removed from his position as general consul in 1995 for "repeated disrespect of authority." Hernández Haddad filed a complaint for defamation nearly a year later.