BOGOTA, Colombia — Even Colombians accustomed to treachery and deceit after more than a half-century of civil conflict and drug-related violence were stunned by the arrest of a one-time provincial lawmaker for allegedly helping plan the mass kidnapping of 11 colleagues later slain by leftist rebels.
Even more remarkable, the alleged traitor was among the kidnapped, and “miraculously” survived seven years later when the others were killed in murky circumstances.
“I can’t get it in my head that this could actually have been possible,” Interior Minister Federico Renjifo said upon hearing of last week’s arrest of Sigifredo Lopez. “I can only hold out the hope, as a human being, that this doesn’t turn out to be true.”
Plenty of Colombians, including relatives of the slain deputies, are perplexed by the arrest of Lopez on suspicion of murder, hostage-taking, perfidy and rebellion in connection with events that began on April 11, 2002, when guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia disguised as soldiers slipped into the state Assembly building in Cali, the Andean nation’s No. 3 city, and rounded up the deputies, killing a police officer.
Prosecutors have not yet offered a possible motive for the ex-lawmaker’s arrest, prompting speculation that the 49-year-old Lopez, released by the FARC in 2009, was somehow double-crossed by the rebels.