Freed Venezuelan Journalist Says Captors Didn’t Hurt Her Latin American Herald Tribune April 14, 2014
CARACAS – Journalist Nairobi Pinto, rescued by Venezuelan police on Monday after being kidnapped eight days ago, said at a press conference that she was not mistreated while she was in captivity.
“I don’t want to give many details. I want you to forgive me, but this is a security matter and the authorities will be the ones tasked with investigating it,” Pinto, head of news reporting for Globovision television, said during a joint press conference with Interior Minister Miguel Rodriguez.
The journalist, who was kidnapped at her home in Caracas on April 6 by two armed men wearing masks, said that she was not mistreated, that she spent most of her time blindfolded and that her captors “never spoke” in her presence.
A few hours earlier, Pinto had been rescued safe and sound from her kidnappers in Cua, a town in the interior of Miranda state, which includes part of greater Caracas.
Her release came when police are undertaking an “operation with some 3,000 officers” in Cua, Rodriguez said.
“We presume that the police pressure played an important role” in the release, he added, though declining to offer details pending completion of the investigation.
Regarding the motive for the kidnapping, Rodriguez said that while the government does not want to speculate, the question had been raised as to “who would gain by this deed.”
“To the extent that we can give answers to this question, we will get closer to the definitive solution of this case,” he added.
The minister emphasized that Pinto “has contributed important information” for the investigation and emphasized the possibility of a political motive for the crime that, he said, “normally has an economic aim.”
The journalist, he continued, “has a special feature” and her fate “impacts three vital sectors of society, more so at a time in which we are in a process of dialogue” between the government and the opposition to settle the political conflict blamed for some 40 deaths.
Pinto, Rodriguez noted, is not only a prominent journalist, but is also active with the Catholic Church’s youth ministry and a law student.
The minister on the weekend had ruled out that Pinto’s kidnapping could have a political motive.
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