Hans Gotterbarm had reported the threats received by a school principal
By
Cristián Torresfrom Santiago, Chile
Journalist Hans Gotterbarm in an office for the Chilevisión channel.
A Chilean journalist was savagely attacked by a group of criminals, who robbed him, broke his arm and even stabbed him. The attack occurred weeks after the professional denounced a series of threats against a school principal by antisocials.
The victim was identified as Hans Gotterbarm, a journalist who works in the city of Iquique, located 1,757 kilometers north of Santiago. The professional is a correspondent for the program Contigo en Directo that is broadcast throughout the country on the Chilevisión channel.
The event was made known by the communicator Cristián Núñez Fica who reported that Gotterbarm “was brutally attacked in the last few hours”, and that a group of “subjects stabbed him, broke an arm and robbed him. He will enter the ward this afternoon, he is hospitalized in Iquique hospital in serious condition.”
According to the site SoyIquique.cl, the professional’s family reported that “he was alone at the time when five armed individuals got out and intercepted him.” Carabineros reported that later “after a struggle with the criminals, the correspondent was beaten, stabbed and then ran over him, and later the subjects fled the scene with the stolen cell phone.”
For the Tarapacá Prosecutor’s Office the attack against the professional “was a ‘encerrona’”, that is, a violent intervention by a group of criminals against a victim to block their path and steal their vehicle using firearms.
Threats in a school
Screenshot of the threat against the director of the Instituto del Mar, located in the Chilean city of Iquique.
The attack against Hans Gotterbarm It happened weeks after the young professional denounced to the entire country a series of threats against the director of the Institute of the Sea, in Iquique.
At the time of giving Knowing about this case, Hans Gotterbarm denounced that he and the team that was accompanying him at the time had been recorded from a red car. “We were here waiting for the cell phone and a red vehicle approached a few minutes ago polarized They turned around, stood in front of us, lowered the glass in a very intimidating way, they were recording us for a few minutes and then they left”, said the professional at the time.
However, it was not the first time that Hans Gotterbarm experienced an episode like this because he had already been bullied in the same way. “Yesterday we experienced the same thing. The vehicle arrives, stops in front of us, turns around and then returns. He lowers the glass and we could see a young man inside this car, he was coming with the music quite loud, we couldn’t hear if he was saying anything to us,” said Hans.
This generated a complaint in Carabineros who arrested two subjects. One of the individuals explained that he went to the place where the journalistic team was because “I wanted to be on TV and I went there, because I think they had had a problem with the school.”
So far it has been reported that the young professional underwent surgery and that he would be out of life-threatening, recovering from his injuries.