Confessed participant in kidnapping of the father of soccer player Luis Díaz is sentenced in Colombia

A judge in Colombia sentenced the confessed participant in the kidnapping of the father of Colombian soccer player Luis Díaz at the hands of the National Liberation Army guerrilla in October 2023 to more than four years in prison, the prosecutor’s office reported on Thursday.

Luis Manuel Díaz Jiménez, father of the footballer for the Colombian national team and the English club Liverpool, was kidnapped along with his wife at a gas station in Barrancas, northern Colombia, by armed men who were traveling on motorcycles. The mother, Cilenis Marulanda, was released hours later, but the father remained in captivity for 12 days.

Yerdinson Bolívar Bolívar, alias “Arenca”, accepted the crime of simple kidnapping charged by the prosecution and during the hearings he asked for forgiveness from the soccer player’s parents and promised not to repeat said crime.

According to the investigation, on October 28, 2023, Bolívar accompanied the soccer player’s parents to the place where armed men were waiting to kidnap them. In addition, the prosecution pointed out that he had met on several occasions with members of the ELN to provide information on the couple’s routines and movements.

Bolívar was a coach at a soccer school run by Díaz Jiménez, located in the center of Barracas, where dozens of children and young people have trained who dream of following in the footsteps of the Liverpool player.

The prosecution maintains that Bolívar took advantage of the closeness he had with the parents of the renowned soccer player to provide key information for the kidnapping.

Three other people were captured for their alleged connection to the kidnapping of Díaz Jiménez, but have not yet been convicted.

After the kidnapping and several days of uncertainty, the ELN accepted that it had Díaz Jiménez in its possession. The top leader of the guerrilla that has taken up arms for six decades, alias Antonio García, assured that it was a “mistake.”

The footballer’s father was released by the ELN in the vicinity of the Serranía del Perijá, a difficult-to-access mountain complex bordering Venezuela, after the facilitation of a mission from the United Nations and the Catholic Church.

“They were quite difficult days because there was a lot of horseback riding, we had to walk too much, go up and down many mountains looking for a way to keep me safe,” Díaz Jiménez said after regaining his freedom.

The event generated rejection in Colombia and the government demanded that the ELN – with which it maintains a peace negotiation table – abandon the kidnappings. The guerrilla suspended them for a few months and then resumed them, after making requests to finance the peace process.

The government indefinitely suspended the dialogue table with the ELN since September, in protest of an attack with explosives against a military unit in which three soldiers died and more than 25 were injured.

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