The happy epilogue was expected and hoped for. He arrived a few hours before Luis Diaz played a Europa League match in Toulouse with Liverpool on Thursday. The father of the Colombian attacker was freed by the ELN (National Liberation Army) guerrillas.
Luis Manuel Diaz and his wife Cilenis Marulanda were kidnapped on October 28 from a gas station in Barrancas, the family’s hometown, near the border with Venezuela, in northeastern Colombia, by armed men traveling a motorcycle.
The Liverpool player’s mother was quickly released, but the father remained in the hands of his captors for longer, until Thursday.
Accompanied by a humanitarian mission, Luis Manuel Diaz landed by helicopter at Valledupar airport, in the north of the country, where he was handed over by rebels who are holding peace negotiations with the government of President Gustavo Petro. “Long live Freedom and Peace”, reacted the latter on social networks.