The Colombian prosecutor's office has opened up an investigation into former cycling great Luis 'Lucho' Herrera and his brother Rafael over alleged involvement in a 20-year-old missing persons case.
According to the state prosecutor's office, the case centres around the involuntary disappearance of four people in a rural zone near the town of Fusagasuga in 2002, possibly linked to paramilitary activity in the area.
Herrera, 64, has consistently denied any implication in the case, which is being handled by an attorney from the state department specialising in human rights. Speaking in court last June, according to L'Équipe, he said the accusation had been made by people seeking to sully his name. His brother has also insisted on his innocence.
Lucho Herrera is famous for being a breakthrough rider for Colombia at a time when the country was fighting to establish a foothold in the European side of the sport. Amongst many other climbing triumphs, he clinched the country's debut victory on Alpe d'Huez in 1984 and then went on to win the Vuelta a España, Colombia's first-ever Grand Tour victory, in 1987.
Herrera's involvement first emerged last April when a judge in Fusagasugá formally asked authorities to investigate the possible links with the Colombian racer. The bodies of two of the four missing people, smallholders from a farm near Herrera's estate, were recovered in 2008 by authorities and finally returned to their families 17 years later, but the other two have never been located.
Herrera himself was kidnapped by a Colombian paramilitary force, FARC, in 2000, along with another former top racer, Oliverio Rincón, but both were later released.
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