The Colombian Prosecutor's Office imputes the crime of violent sexual act to the writer Alberto Salcedo Ramos

Colombian journalist Alberto Salcedo during a talk at the Casa de la Literatura Peruana, in 2016 CASA DE LA LITERATURA PERUANA

For the Colombian Prosecutor's Office the writer Alberto Salcedo Ramos took advantage of his position of power to sexually harass two women, Angie Castellanos and Alejandra Omaña, who at the time of the events denounced, 2011 and 2013, were journalism students and he, already a recognized and award-winning writer.

This Thursday, in a hearing held virtually, the Prosecutor's Office charged Salcedo Ramos with the crime of violent sexual act, five months after the two women criminally denounced him.

If found guilty, the chronicler could pay a penalty of between eight and 16 years in prison.

For now, he denies the charges and the case in court is just beginning.

In total there were 22 women, all young university students when the events occurred, who in September 2020 told

, a YouTube space of the newspaper

, how Salcedo Ramos taking advantage - according to their testimonies - of his position as professor and teacher journalist of great recognition, approached them with the excuse of sharing his experience and helping them to open a space in the media to sexually abuse them.

The pattern is repeated in all the stories: Salcedo Ramos met them in academic spaces, contacted them, through social networks in most cases, invited them to have a drink, a coffee almost always, and then -they say- under any pretext He took them to his apartment, where he kissed and groped them forcibly.

The two women who brought their complaints to the criminal justice system, and for whom Salcedo Ramos has opened a file against him today, point out that the ties with the writer arose from admiration.

In 2011, the Colombian writer was already walking throughout Latin America with his chronicle workshops as one of the most recognized and admired by several generations of journalists in the region.

He had already been the winner of the Ortega y Gasset award, the King of Spain and the Simón Bolívar National Journalism Award, the most important in Colombia, on more than one occasion.

“He told me that I was very special because I had caught his attention in the midst of all his followers.

I was very surprised that a person as prestigious as him, with 5,000 followers for writing chronicles, wanted to talk to me, ”Angie Castellano, one of the complainants, told this newspaper last September.

"I would like to kiss you more than that night, without forcing anything, just enjoying it both, kissing and caressing you", reads one of the messages that the writer sent to Castellanos after the night in which she had to run out of her home because of the pressure from Salcedos Ramos to have more than a talk about journalism.

The Prosecutor's Office validated the accounts of the two women.

Alejandra Omaña tells in her complaint that she met the chronicler at a literary event where she, due to her work in a publishing house, had to accompany the writers, among them, Salcedo.

“Before we had spoken on Facebook, he congratulated me because I was writing at the time for Soho magazine, he told me that we were colleagues and that he would always help me with writing if we were in contact.

We talked for a few days and I sent him little stories and stories that I wrote, he read them and told me that surely in time I was going to be a great journalist ”.

Later on he invited her to have a drink, took her home and they had not finished closing the door and he already had his hands on her.

“When we entered the apartment, he immediately took me by force and began to rub them on his pants,” says Omaña.

Salcedo Ramos, 57, stood idly by in the audience.

When it was his turn to speak and the judge offered him a few minutes to pronounce on the crime charged by the Prosecutor's Office, he limited himself to saying that he did not need time to respond: "I have it clear, I do not need minutes, I do not accept the charges", He said.

So far, the journalist has refused to speak to the press.

In September, a week after the complaints were known, he published a statement on his

, with more than 100,000 followers, in which he assured that the links with the two young women had been "adult relationships" and that he had evidence to prove it. .

"There was never a subordinate bond or a position of power that represented a threat to them," he wrote in the document.

However, for the Prosecutor's Office, there are two aggravating factors in his case that are stipulated by the Colombian criminal code: "The distinguished position that the sentenced person occupies in society, due to his position, economic position, illustration, power, office or ministry" and the violation “Of the duties that social or kinship relations impose on the sentenced person with respect to the victim”.

In the next 30 days the Prosecutor's Office must present the indictment against Salcedo Ramos, who is innocent before the courts until the case progresses and the judge determines in the trial if he is guilty or not. It will take at least six more hearings and as many months to know the end of this process, which for the first time in Colombia allows complaints in a medium, as in this case it was in

escalate to the judicial sphere.