Journalist Alberto Santacruz Centeno received a telephone call in which an individual who claimed to be a paramilitary group commander threatened him.
(IPYS/IFEX) – On 27 August 2009, journalist Alberto Santacruz Centeno, the director of the RCN radio network’s news programme “Radio Sucesos”, received a telephone call in which an individual who claimed to be a commander of the “Águilas Negras” paramilitary group threatened him. The incident took place in Barrancabermeja, in northern Colombia.
The journalist told IPYS that the individual in question called the station and complained that Santacruz had failed to read a statement issued by the paramilitary group.
The man demanded that Santacruz provide him with ten airline tickets in order to relocate commandos from Medellín to Barrancabermeja. He then threatened to attack Santacruz’s five-year-old daughter if the journalist did not agree to his request. He also named the school where Santacruz’s daughter studies.
Santacruz told IPYS that his daughter’s teachers told him they have seen an unidentified individual loitering around the school.
According to Santacruz, the authorities minimised the importance of his complaint, pointing out that the call could have been made by a convict in order to blackmail him, which is a common crime in Colombia.
