Owner of Globovision TV channel arrested in Venezuela

Thu, 25 Mar 2010

Caracas - Guillermo Zuloaga, owner and president of the television channel Globovision, was arrested Thursday in Venezuela as he attempted to leave the country.

Hours earlier, ruling-party legislators had requested a probe of his behavior regarding comments he had made at a media industry gathering in the country about the 2002 coup attempt against Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

Zuloaga contacted Globovision to denounce his own arrest, which he described as arbitrary since he had not been informed that an arrest warrant had been issued against him.

He said he was traveling to Bonaire, in the Netherlands Antilles, for Easter. He was set to leave from the airport in the western Venezuelan state of Falcon when he was arrested. He was to be taken to Caracas.

"I have not received any notification that I have any problems, except what has been on the news, that there is supposedly an investigation of my comments at the (meeting,)" Zuloaga said of the Inter-American Press Association gathering.

Shortly afterward, Venezuelan Attorney General Luisa Ortega Diaz confirmed the reasons for the arrest and said the authorities feared that he might escape from the country.

Ortega Diaz charged that Zuloaga had made offensive, disrespectful comments about Chavez.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/315833,owner-of-globovision-tv-channel-arrested-in-venezuela.html.