Bogota (AFP)
Colombian international attacking midfielder Juan Fernando Quintero asked for an explanation on Monday for the disappearance of his father 24 years ago while he was serving on the orders of the new army chief.
"I don't want to take advantage of the new General of the Army (Enrique) Zapateiro (...) taking office, but I hope to be able to start a dialogue very soon and find out what happened", the player from River Plate, Argentina, said on his Twitter account.
"I have the right as a son to know what happened to my father (...) because I suffered and I saw my family suffering from psychological problems," added Quintero, who didn’t was only two years old when his father Jaime Quintero disappeared in 1995.
General Zapateiro, then captain in the unit where Jaime Quintero served, was whitewashed by the courts in 2001, but the relatives of the disappeared continue to ask him where he is.
Jaime Quintero disappeared in 1995 while doing military service at an army base in Carepa, in the northeast of the country.
According to his family, Enrique Zapateiro ordered Jaime Quintero to go to Medellin after an alleged altercation between the two men concerning acts of indiscipline, but he never arrived at his destination.
In this case, "there is no evidence of the responsibility of the captain commander (...) Eduardo Enrique Zapateiro Altamiranda, now designated commander of the army, nor against any member of the national army" , said the army in a statement posted on its website.
In Colombia, 83,000 people have disappeared in more than 50 years of civil war, according to the National Center for Historical Memory - an official body - almost three times more than under dictatorships in Argentina, Brazil and Chile in the second part of the 20th century.
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