the paramilitary leader Freddy Rendón Herrera aka "El Alemán" accused members of the military forces of being intellectual authors of the murder. Castaño is accused of being the mastermind of the crime On September 13, 1999, the authorities reacted promptly to guarantee the arrest of the assassins of the journalist. Four people participated in the first investigations as key witnesses of the crime: María Amparo Arroyave Mantilla, Wilson Llano Caballero alias El Profe, Maribel Pérez Jiménez and Wilson Raúl Ramirez Muñoz. Although the time of the crime was too early and María Amparo Arroyave was on the 4th floor of a building (located 100 meters from the place of the assassination) and the two hitmen were wearing helmets, she was able to give a detailed description of one of the assassins' face and clothing. On August 19, 1999, as an answer to the suggestion of a journalist, who had said that the responsibility for the crime of Garzón fell on the military superiors, the Minister of Defense, Luis Fernando Ramírez, along with several commanders of the National Army, made a public declaration. In it, they announced that such suggestion was defamatory and that they rejected and condemned the crime of one of the best journalists of the end of the century, the best humorist and the sharpest critic of the Colombian society of the last decades. On January 6, 2000, the Police of Medellín arrested Juan Pablo Ortiz Agudelo, alias Bochas, who, according to the Administrative Department of Security, was the assassin that shot Garzón and was recognized by María Amparo Arroyave. On April 24 Carlos Castaño, top leader of the AUC, was formally accused of being the mastermind of the crime. On June 6 he was declared absent defendant. On September 24, 2001, the Police arrested Edilberto Antonio Sierra Ayala in Belén de Umbría under the accusation of being the other criminal who had driven the motorbike. On January 3, 2002, the tribunal made the closure of the process official. Therefore, a request of the civil part to review the case was ignored by the tribunal. Complaints of manipulation of the investigation On January 21, 2000, the Attorney General was the first entity to cast doubt on the veracity of María Teresa Arroya Montoya's testimony. The Attorney then ordered a careful inspection of the place from which she claimed that she saw the crime. According to lawyer Alirio Uribe