By Ingrid Bachmann
Angélica Ramírez, a well-known host on a TV station in Huila department, was arrested Nov. 15, El Espectador reports. The police accused her of connections with the FARC guerilla organization and charged her with extortion, terrorism, and the illegal trafficking of weapons, El Tiempo explains.
The police report says that the host would collect information about potential extortion targets – mainly business people and celebrities – and would give it to FARC leaders, RCN radio explains.
Ramírez denied the accusations, but the Associated Press reports that prosecutors claim to have incriminating witnesses, documents, and phone recordings.
The arrest took the journalist’s colleagues by surprise. “We never would have thought that Angélica could be involved in those type of activities,” the director of her station said, quoted by El Diario de Huila.
Note from the editor: This story was originally published by the Knight Center’s blog Journalism in the Americas, the predecessor of LatAm Journalism Review.
