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VILE footage shows a man slapping a woman for refusing to give up her seat next to his wife.
When businessman Héctor Santacruz struck lawyer Claudia Segura, a furious row broke out between him and other passengers at a Colombian airport terminal.
The row began when Santacruz asked Segura to stand up from her seat in the lounge area of Gate 9 in Bogotá’s El Dorado International Airport on Sunday night.
Segura had apparently taken Santacruz’s seat while he was away.
The businessman became enraged when she refused to stand up and stayed put next to his wife, Karen de Santacruz.
Disturbing footage shows Santacruz threateningly towering over Segura as they exchange heated words.
He is then seen knocking her mobile phone out of her hands before slapping her in the face.
“Get up or I’ll get you up,” Santacruz said before the assault, according to local outlet El Tiempo.
Segura told the outlet: “He hits me on the hand, knocks off my phone and hits me hard in the face and head.
“The magnitude of the impact knocked my earring off.”
Within no time, several horrified passengers – both men and women – rush to Segura’s defence and push Santacruz away.
Others join in as he continues to behave aggressively despite efforts by his wife to calm the situation.
Separate footage filmed just minutes after the brawl shows Segura lying on the ground as airport staff tend to her injuries.
Santacruz is then seen being handcuffed and hauled off by security staff, with passengers cheering.
Segura told El Tiempo: “I am affected and very afraid.”
She explained that she initially believed the seat was unoccupied: “When I got to the waiting area, everything was completely full, and I only saw one empty chair.
“I didn’t have any bags or clothes on me to indicate it was occupied, so I sat down.”
When Santacruz’s wife told her the seat was taken, the lawyer decided to stay put in order to wrap up a work call.
Karen de Santacruz later apologised in a now-deleted video on Instagram, the Daily Mail reports.
She said: “The person shown physically assaulting a woman is my husband.
“And you don’t know how much it hurts me to say this out loud.
“It really hurts me as a woman, as a mother.”
It is unclear whether Santacruz is facing any charges.
Colombia has high rates of gender-based violence, with over 500 femicides annually and nearly 97% of cases going unpunished, according to Human Rights Watch and civil society data.
