Liverpool striker, Luis Diaz had an emotional reunion with his father, Luis Manuel Diaz, who was freed after a 12-day kidnapping ordeal by Colombia’s ELN guerrilla group.
Gatekeepers News reports that Diaz returned to Colombia ahead of a World Cup qualifying match against Brazil, and the meeting with his father was arranged in Barranquilla.
The emotional embrace between father and son was captured by the Colombian Football Federation.
“After 12 days deprived of freedom, this is the first contact of the player with his father and the rest of the family, who lived long moments of anguish,” the FCF said on its website with a photo of the two men and the footballer’s young daughter on her grandfather’s knee.
Luis Manuel Diaz, 56, and his wife were abducted on October 28, and the ELN, in peace negotiations with the government, later described the kidnapping as a “mistake.”
After days of intense negotiations, the rebels released Luis Diaz over to humanitarian workers in a mountainous border area.
The following day, he told reporters at his home in Barrancas how he was made to walk “too much,” with very little sleep, at the hands of his kidnappers.
On Saturday, police said they had arrested four suspects in relation to the crime.
Luis Manuel Diaz is the founder and amateur coach of the only football academy in Barrancas, where his son showed promise from a very young age.
Diaz Sr is credited with aiding the meteoric rise of his son, who has played for his country 43 times and is the first Indigenous Colombian to make it to world football’s top echelons.
