Bogota - Millions of Colombians kept a minute's silence over the death of an 11-month-old baby, ordered by his own father apparently to hide the fact he had a child, Colombian media reported Thursday. Carrying white flags and white roses, many people gathered on squares and streets across the country, on the same day that a bill was proposed to Congress that would establish life in prison as the penalty for those who commit crimes against the life, the freedom and the sexual development of children under 14.
The kidnapping and later murder last week of the baby Luis Santiago Lozano, either at the hands of his own father or at least on his orders, caused a commotion in the South American country. The body was found Tuesday.
Two people grabbed the baby from his mother's house in Chia, near Bogota.
"I found the people and I paid them. The order was that they were to cause the boy's disappearance," the father told a court.
He insisted that he did not kill Luis Santiago himself. His accomplices have admitted the charges of kidnapping but not homicide.
According to the police, the man wanted to hide from his new girlfriend the fact that he had had a baby with another woman.
The proposed bill has the support of a majority of the parties in the lower house of the Colombian Congress. However, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe said he is against the move and noted that it would cause "a great polarization" in the country.
Vice President Francisco Santos, in turn, disagreed with his boss and said the death penalty should be contemplated in cases like the murder of the young Luis Santiago.
"I am not sure that a person who commits a crime like that, who proves his inhumanity, has the right to live. I do not know if a person like that might not deserve to have the same end that his defenceless son had," Santos said.
