Fusagasuga, Colombia, Feb 5 (AFP/APP/DNA):When four young farmers were taken at gunpoint from their homes during the darkest hours of Colombia’s conflict, nobody could have suspected it would be linked to a legend of the country’s favorite sport.
But one of Colombia’s many cold cases is back on the front pages following shock new allegations: the hitmen claim that the mastermind of the 2002 abduction was none other than international cycling star Luis “Lucho” Herrera.
The 64-year-old former Tour of Spain winner, who also won several mountain stages in the Tour de France, is accused by two former paramilitaries of paying them about $9,700 for the disappearance and killings of his four neighbors in the central Colombian town of Fusagasuga.
The ex-paramilitaries are former members of one of the far-right death squads that for decades fought Colombia’s left-wing guerrillas.
They say that Herrera claimed the victims were rebels who had tried to extort him, when they were actually targeted because they refused to sell land to Herrera, who built up a sprawling business empire in Fusagasuga after he retired.
Last week, prosecutors announced that Herrera was under investigation over the case, which has haunted his hometown for over two decades.
AFP visited the victims’ families at the modest farmhouses where Diuviseldo Torres, Gonzalo Guerrero, and brothers Victor Manuel and Jose del Carmen Rodriguez were last seen, about 75 kilometers (47 miles) from Bogota.
They recalled a pickup truck descending the steep road leading to the houses on the night of their disappearances.
Men claiming to be from Colombia’s former intelligence agency DAS then took the men away at gunpoint, claiming they were wanted for robbery.
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