Investigative journalist reveals all on death threats and fleeing Colombia
Investigative journalist reveals all on death threats and fleeing Colombia
posted by Daniel Freeman
Oct 7, 2013
Outspoken journalist Claudia Lopez, who fled Colombia last week due to death threats, has told Colombia Reports that she “knows exactly where [the threats] are coming from,” and is demanding that the police take action.
During the last week of September, the National Protection Unit of Colombia (UNP) told Claudia Lopez that a hitman had been contracted in Bogota to kill her and several of her colleagues. Lopez has reason to believe that the threats are coming from a criminal gang led by “Marquitos Figueroa,” who is believed to be colluding with Francisco “Kiko” Gomez, the governor of the northern Colombian state of La Guajira.
Two years ago, Lopez and three other journalists exposed Gomez, among others, as having ties to the mafia and having potentially assassinated political opponents.
Lopez and her fellow journalists went to the police and the Prosecutor General to ask them to investigate the threats, but she says that the authorities “have not moved forward on the requests to [examine] the evidence.” The journalist decided to flee the country this past Wednesday out of fear for her life.
More:
http://colombiareports.co/investigative-journalist-reveals-death-threats-fleeing-colombia/
