William Parra

William Parra (b. 1966[1] ) is one of Colombia's best known journalists.[2] He has worked for Caracol Radio, Reuters,[2] and RCN TV,[3] and in the 1990s was press secretary for then-Colombian President Ernesto Samper.[4] He worked for TeleSUR full-time from 2006 to 2008, and subsequently as a freelance journalist.[5] Parra currently has political asylum in Venezuela, after being charged in Colombia with links with the FARC rebels.[3] Parra denies the accusations, and said in September that his lawyers had received death threats.[6][7]

Parra was kidnapped for 10 days in December 1997,[8] by men claiming to be members of the Medellin cartel.[9] Arrests were later made of members of Jaime Bateman Cayon's rebel group.[10] In 2000 he fled to Spain following death threats, and in 2005 he was attacked and seriously injured near Bogota.[1]

On 14 September 2013, he was shot in the leg by a rebel sniper in Harasta while covering the Syrian civil war for TeleSUR.[11] On 25 September, he interviewed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.[12]

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