FARC behind kidnapping of Japanese farmer: Colombian police

0 Comments | Asian Political News, Oct 8, 2001

MEXICO CITY, Oct. 3 Kyodo

Colombia's largest leftist guerrilla group was behind the kidnapping of a Japanese farmer for the second time in three years, Colombian police said Tuesday.

Shoro Shimura, a 72-year-old former assemblyman in Japan's Yamanashi Prefecture who owns a farm in Colombia, was kidnapped Sept. 1 by 12 men from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) led by FARC's military commander, Jorge Briceno, better known as ''Mono Jojoy'' on the outskirts of Bogota, they said.

FARC was involved in a February kidnapping of another Japanese, Chikao Muramatsu, they added.

Muramatsu, a 52-year-old vice president of a local joint venture involving Japanese auto parts maker Yazaki Corp., is still being held by FARC.

The police said they are searching for Shimura in the FARC's stronghold, a heavily wooded region straddling the southern provinces of Caqueta and Meta and where Muramatsu is believed to be.

FARC has already made a demand for ransom to people close to Shimura, according to the police. The amount is unknown.

Shimura, who began visiting Colombia around 1987, owns a farm with a Colombian in San Raimundo, Cundinamarca Province about 30 kilometers southwest of Bogota.

He was first kidnapped by FARC in September 1998 at a farm he had in Pasca in the same province, and was freed five months later on a ransom of about 25 million yen, they said.

Shimura returned to Colombia and had been staying in Bogota since August this year to run the farm in San Raimundo.