Paraguayan army confirmed death of young man kidnapped by guerrillas

The Paraguayan security forces confirmed this Sunday the death of the young man who was kidnapped Monday evening allegedly by a guerrilla, and whose body appeared the day before in a Brazilian town, about 70 kilometers from the place of the abduction.

Lieutenant-Colonel Luis Apesteguia reported that the corpse of Jorge Ríos, 23, found in the town of Caracolito, is said to have gunshot wounds.

However, the data is waiting to be confirmed, told Efe Apesteguia, spokesman for the Joint Task Force (FTC), the body that fights guerrilla warfare in the north of the country.

Apesteguia added that The body is transferred to be kept by his family at the Dos Hermanas ranch, in the district of Puentesiño, in the department of Concepción (north), where he was forcibly taken by suspected members of the Peasant People’s Army (ACA EP), a group that was considered to be practically disjointed.

The family, which had accepted the request of this group to release the young man, the payment of 200,000 dollars, had gone to Caracolito late Sunday evening after the information of the Brazilian police of the discovery of the body.

The government did not confirm the identity at the time, although Interior Minister Arnaldo Giuzzio admitted to media that the chances of it being Ríos were high.

Since Tuesday, the Ríos family has requested proof of life from the kidnappers, who left a letter with the claims signed by ACA-EP on the farm.

The other request was that they not disclose this statement, which leaked on networks and was followed by calls to the families of alleged kidnappers to whom they did not give credibility.

This prompted the family to ask the government to withdraw from the case to facilitate Ríos’ release, and to ask the kidnappers for proof of life and the exact location of payment of the amount, which the letter said should be made. at a point on the Apa river.

The family, who until Saturday repeated these requests through the media, had expressed their willingness to make the required payment, despite the fact that their account was blocked, the government’s procedure in the event of a kidnapping.

The ACA is a split from the Paraguayan People’s Army (PPE), the guerrilla group founded in 2008 which kidnapped in September last year the former vice-president Óscar Denis, 75, whose whereabouts are unknown. . After having killed several of its leaders in the past, the security forces declared this group beheaded, detached from the EPP because of differences between its leaders, according to the authorities.

The EPP, which is backed by kidnappings of cattle entrepreneurs in northern Paraguay and the payment of the “revolutionary tax”, kidnapped Denis in September last year near his cattle ranch in the north of the country.

The group demanded that the family distribute food to peasant communities worth two million dollars, a condition they claimed to have met.

The other demand was addressed to the government: the release of two historic guerrillas, which the executive considered impractical.

Since then, they have not heard from Denis, vice-president of the liberal cabinet which ruled Paraguay between 2012 and 2013.

(with information from the EFE)

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