COLOMBIAN DEATH SQUAD MURDERS JOURNALIST

BOGOTA (Reuters) - Gunmen claiming allegiance to a Colombian anti-communist
death squad have shot dead a journalist and dumped his body on a remote
roadside, authorities said Monday.

Carlos Jose Restrepo, editor and publisher of two regional publications in
central Tolima province, was the fourth journalist murdered this year in
war-torn Colombia.

Police said Restrepo was seized Saturday near the town El Cerrito in Tolima,
a coffee-growing region, by 20 men who said they were members of a national
paramilitary force known as the United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia.

They led him away in handcuffs and later shot him dead.

Witnesses told police the gunmen accused the journalist of collecting
extortion payments on behalf of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia,
Colombia's largest Marxist guerrilla force.

The killing underscored Colombia's reputation among international press
watchdogs as one of the most dangerous countries in the world for reporters.

Since 1980, more than 100 reporters have died in the cross-fire of the
three-decade-old conflict being waged by guerrillas, security forces,
anti-communist paramilitary gangs and narco-traffickers.