Radio presenter Edgar Quintero became the second Colombian journalist to be murdered in three weeks on Monday (2 March) when a gunman shot him as he entered a baker’s shop near his workplace.
The killer arrived by motorbike and, after shooting Quintero seven times, mounted his bike and fled.
Quintero, known as Quintín, hosted a daily news and commentary programme on Radio Luna in Palmira, a city in Colombia’s south-western department, Valle del Cauca.
According to local journalists cited by the Committee for the Protection of Journalists (CPJ), he often criticised local government and police officials while discussing issues such as corruption.
Edison Hidalgo, a journalist for another station, Radio Palmira, said that 57-year-old Quintero had recently referred on air to officials from the city’s previous administration as thieves. He received threats more than a year ago.
“Edgar Quintero is the second radio journalist to be murdered in fewer than three weeks in Colombia,” said Carlos Lauría, CPJ’s senior programme coordinator for the Americas.
“Authorities must act now to guarantee the safety of all Colombian journalists and ensure these two cases don’t become the latest examples of the country’s terrible impunity record”.
On 14 February, radio journalist and aspiring politician Luis Carlos Peralta Cuéllar, who often broadcast reports criticising political corruption, was shot dead in the southern town of Doncello, Caquetá.
Sources: CPJ/Colombia Reports
