The Colombian Prosecutor’s Office has initiated an investigation against Luis ‘Lucho’ Herrera, renowned former cyclist and champion of the Vuelta a España in 1987, and his brother Rafael. The investigation focuses on their alleged involvement in the disappearance of four people more than two decades ago in Fusagasugá, Herrera’s hometown. The decision was made by a prosecutor from the Specialized Directorate against Human Rights Violations. The Herrera brothers are accused as alleged responsible for the disappearance of the four people in a rural area of Fusagasugá, Cundinamarca, on October 23, 2002, according to an official statement. The Prosecutor’s Office has indicated that there is material evidence suggesting that Lucho and Rafael Herrera would have contacted members of the extinct Autodefensas Campesinas del Casanare, which operated in the Sumapaz region between 2002 and 2003. The objective would have been for these self-defense groups to kidnap a group of people who lived near the Herrera family’s properties. The case came to light in April of last year, when Judge María del Pilar Bocarejo asked the Prosecutor’s Office to investigate the possible involvement of the former cyclist in the forced disappearance of four neighbors, allegedly with the collaboration of paramilitaries. It is presumed that the former cyclist sought protection from paramilitary groups after having been kidnapped by the FARC in the year 2000.
Accusations of paramilitaries
The judge explained in a hearing last year that, in a case against the ex-paramilitary Luis Fernando Gómez Flórez, convicted of the disappearance of the four people, he directly accused Lucho Herrera in a statement on October 11, 2022. According to the version of Gómez, alias Ojitos, and another ex-paramilitary named Óscar Andrés Huertas, alias Menudencias, both received the order from Martín Llanos, leader of the Autodefensas Campesinas del Casanare, to fulfill a commission from Herrera to make the neighbors disappear, supposedly with the intention of taking over their lands.
