The exciclist Luis ‘Lucho’ Herrerachampion of the return to Spain of 1987, is being investigated by the Colombian Prosecutor’s Office for its alleged participation in the forced disappearance of four neighbors. The act would have been perpetrated in 2002 by a paramilitary group after a complaint made by the former sportsman.
“I have never belonged to criminal organizations or tried to cause any person to any person. I have dedicated my life to sport and, after my withdrawal from professional cycling, to work honestly, “Herrera said in a statement published in local media.”Emphatically rejected the imputations that intend to mitigate my name And my career as a citizen, worker and father, “he added.
Judge María del Pilar Bocarejo, of the Fourth Criminal Court with a function of knowledge of Fusagasugá, city of the department of Cundinamarca from where Herrera is native and resides, ordered the prosecution to investigate the exciclista in a Case of forced disappearance of four neighborsoccurred more than 20 years ago.
In an anticipated sentence to one of the paramilitaries involved in this case, the judge explained that the convicted person, Luis Fernando Gómez Flórez, “He made direct signaling against Lucho Herrera In the investigation diligence of October 11, 2022 “, according to a document released by local media.
The case dates back to 2002 when, according to the version of Gómez, aka ‘Ojitos’, and from another exparamilitary called Óscar Andrés Huertas, alias ‘Menudencia’, They received the order by Martín Llanos, head of the peasant self -defense of Casanare, to attend to a Herrera commission.
According to Gomez, the goal was “To send to clean (kidnap and kill) to a people who were a guerrilla militia” And that in reality they were neighbors of the athlete identified as the brothers Víctor Manuel and José del Carmen Rodríguez Martínez, Gonzalo Guerrero Jiménez and Diuviseldo Torres Vega, “disappeared on October 23, 2002, in similar circumstances,” says the judicial document.
Apparently, the order was aimed at removing the four men whom Herrera, allegedly, I would like to strip land for the real estate businesses that he undertook After retiring from cycling.
Herrera, 63, was the first Colombian cyclist to win the mountain champion shirt in the three big turns, in addition to conquer the return to Spain of 1987. On July 18, 1984, it also became the First Latin American cyclist to win a stage in the Tour de Francenumber 17, with arrival in Alpe d’Huez.
