In 2000, the 26-year-old Bedoya was working with Ignacio Gómez at the Bogota daily newspaper El Espectador, covering the Colombian war against terrorism.

At the time of her abduction, she was investigating a story on arms trafficking by both state officials and the far-right paramilitary group United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC).

Suspecting a possible trap, she brought along an editor and photographer from El Espectador's staff, but when the pair were separated from her for a moment while awaiting clearance to go into the prison, she disappeared.

[2] The case was stalled for more than a decade with the Colombia Attorney General's office before Bedoya appealed it to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

[5] In 2001, Bedoya was hired by El Tiempo and was put in charge of its law enforcement coverage, including reporting on paramilitary groups.

The townspeople tried without success to alert the Red Cross to the pair's abduction, and a local priest warned them that the guerrillas were planning to take them into the forest and murder them.

In response, the FARC-aligned news agency Noticias Nueva Colombia posted a headline on its website accusing her of being a military intelligence agent, causing the Colombian-based Foundation for Press Freedom and Canadian Journalists for Free Expression to issue statements of concern for her safety.