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Assignment from hell

POSTED ON January 11 th, 2019
A journalist from Al Jazeera visited Caracas to cover the Venezuelan presidential election in mid-2013. With the assistance of a local interpreter, he was able to conduct an interview with Juancho Montoya, the leader of one of the most feared colectivos in Venezuela at the time. Once the article was published, Montoya was furious and his colectivo texted dozens of death threats to the interpreter. The latter went into hiding for several weeks while the journalist made some amendments to the article to defuse the situation. Montayo was murdered a few months later.