his several years ago, but upon closer examination, surveillance of the shooting revealed that Soto had been waiting for several hours near the place where Sierra was ultimately killed. Luis Arley Ortiz was released by authorities at first, but was arrested once again in May 2002 when authorities discovered he was the middleman who facilitated the deal between a gang of assassins and the person who ordered Sierra's death. A few years after the investigation of Sierra's murder, which was headed by the National Human Rights Unit of the Prosecutor's Office, Luis Frenando Soto Zapata was convicted and received a 19-year prison sentence. He served five years of this sentence, and upon his release, he was murdered shortly after by the police, after assalting and killing a man in the city of Cali. Luis Arley Ortiz and Luis Tabares Hernández, who were co-perpetrators of the crime, were also convicted and received 28-year prison sentences, and the case was essentially closed by The National Human Rights Unit of the Prosecutor's Office in June 2004. However, seven Colombian magazines and newspapers believed the crime was not fully solved, and they came together to create Project Manizales in an effort to raise awareness for Sierra Hernández and investigate his case further. Around this time, a documentary was made regarding Sierra's murder called, "The Battle of Silence." Finally, nine years after the Sierra killing, Colombian officials charged Francisco Ferney Tapasco González with being the one who order Sierra to be killed. He was sentenced to 36 years in prison in November 2015 when he was finally captured and thrown into jail. Around the same time, the court order 28 year sentences for both Fabio López Escobar and Jorge Hernando López Escobar, and as of early 2016, Fabio López Escobar had been deported from the United States to serve his sentence in Colombia and both are now behind bars. Francisco Ferney Tapasco González's lawyers have said they will appeal the court's decision. This was the first ever case of a murdered journalist in Colombia in which all those involved with the murder were prosecuted and sentenced to prison. Context Orlando Sierra Hernández had been openly critical of Francisco Ferney Tapasco González for some time. In fact, he wrote a column in March 1996 laying out why Francisco Ferney Tapasco González was completely unfit to be the president of the assembly of Caldas. This column put