5. On May 10, 2011 the petitioner requested an extention, which was granted. The petitioner presented its additional observations on September 30, 2011. As said observation was sent in English, the IACHR requested the petitioner to send it in Spanish. The information in Spanish was received on January 12, 2012. On March 27, 2012, the IACHR granted the State time to submit observations, and reiterated its request for observations on April 14, 2014. The State did not submit additional observations. On October 22, 2015, Ana María Morra, widow of Santiago Leguizamón, requested the Commission to continue the examination of the petition and dismissed any posibility of reaching a friendly settlement. On December 16, 2015 the Commission informed the parties that it terminated its intervention in the friendly settlement proceeding and that decided to continue with the processing of the petition. III. POSITIONS OF THE PARTIES A. Position of the petitioner 6. The petitioner alleged that Santiago Leguizamón Zaván was a seasoned journalist based in Pedro Juan Caballero, a city on the Brazilian border, in the Department of Amambay, Paraguay. At the time of the events in question, Leguizamón was working as a correspondent for the Asunción-based newspaper Noticias, and hosting the afternoon radio program “Puertas Abiertas” on Radio Mburucuyá, a small local station he founded in 1975. The petitioner indicated that Pedro Juan Caballero was a “lawless area,” plagued by corruption, violence, and crime. It explained that the journalist “made the radio the voice of the voiceless, with journalistic content that was extremely critical of the actions of the borderlands mafia.” 7. The petitioner stated that on April 26, 1991, while on his way to celebrate Journalists’ Day at a restaurant with his colleague Baldomero Cabral, Santiago Leguizamón was intercepted by a black Volkswagen Gol, from which three individuals shot and killed him with weapons of various calibers. According to the petition, the journalist was shot 21 times. This was reportedly—the petitioner asserted—the first murder of a journalist for reasons connected to his profession in post-dictatorship Paraguay. 8. One month before his murder, the newspaper Noticias, for which Leguizamón worked as a correspondent, published a series entitled “Organized Crime in Pedro Juan.” The articles disclosed the involvement of a businessman of Brazilian origin, known by the alias “El Turco,” in businesses tied to smuggling, drug trafficking, and corruption. According to the petitioner, the reports “hinted at the alleged complicity between the crime bosses and President Andrés Rodríguez’s administration,” and there was evidence to indicate that local businessmen and then-President Andrés Rodríguez were the masterminds behind the journalist’s murder. 9. According to the complaint, the direct perpetrators of Santiago Leguizamón’s murder are 4 Brazilian hit men, who—according to information provided by the Brazilian police—confessed to having committed the crime and said that they had been hired by a son of “El Turco’s” to carry it out. The petition states that “El Turco’s” son was a “godson of President Rodríguez’s, a military man who—following the coup of La Candelaria headed by Lino Oviedo in 1989—succeeded another military ruler, Alfredo Stroessner.” 10. The petitioner also explained that, at the time of the events, the journalist was in possession of “a compromising photograph” in which “the head of the Medellín Cartel, Pablo Escovar [sic] Gaviria, [was posing] with ‘El Turco’ and President Rodríguez.” It maintained that Santiago Leguizamon was going to reveal the photograph, along with other incriminating documents. It further alleged that, after his death, neither the photo nor the documents could be found. 11. It explained that President Andrés Rodríguez was criticized “for alleged ties to drug trafficking and suspicion about the origins of his wealth.” The petitioner indicated that Rodríguez had visited the town of Pedro Juan Caballero on February 14, 1991, two months before the journalist’s murder, for the inauguration of a hotel and casino owned by “El Turco.” On that occasion, the landless peasant movement had held a protest demanding solutions of the president, and Leguizamón had reportedly “embraced their cause on his radio program and in his dispatches as a correspondent.” According to the petition, a witness reportedly heard the 2