(IFJ/IFEX) – Reporter Andrés Gil Gomez, cameraman Gustavo González and Pedro Manuel Pinto, from television station RCN TV, who were kidnapped in the morning on Thursday 5 October 2000 by a National Liberation Army (Ejército de Liberacion Nacional, ELN) contingent, were released after thirteen hours of captivity. Gil, twenty-two years old, reported on the RCN […]
(IFJ/IFEX) – Reporter Andrés Gil Gomez, cameraman Gustavo González and Pedro Manuel Pinto, from television station RCN TV, who were kidnapped in the morning on Thursday 5 October 2000 by a National Liberation Army (Ejército de Liberacion Nacional, ELN) contingent, were released after thirteen hours of captivity.
Gil, twenty-two years old, reported on the RCN evening news programme that “they were safe and sound in the San Francisco police station”. San Francisco is a small community located ninety-five kilometers east of Medellín. The reporter noted that he held a radiotelephone interview with the high commander of the ELN, Nicolás Rodríguez, aka “Gabino”, without supplying any more details. “They made us abandon the vehicle at the edge of the road and within seconds, we were on the mountain,” added the journalist.
The RCN TV press team was kidnapped near the town of San Luis, fifty kilometers from the city of Medellín, while they were covering the rebels’ blockade on the Medellín-Bogotá highway, the biggest and most travelled route in the country. “Timoleon”, who directed the highway blockade, blamed RCN TV for the journalists’ kidnapping, “because the communications media has not reported [on] the suspected human rights violations that occurred in the Aquitania (Antioquia) community.”
Recommended Action
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- calling for an investigation into the incident and for the perpetrators to be punished
Appeals To
Doctor Andres Pastrana Arango
President
Kra. 8 n. 7-26
Santa Fe de Bogotá
Tel: +571 284 33 00
Fax: +571 286 74 34/286 79 37/284 21 86
E-mail: pastrana@presidencia.gov.co
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