ACAPULCO, Mexico (AP) -- The father of Mexico's star soccer goalkeeper Jorge Campos was freed unhurt by his kidnappers Tuesday after six days in captivity.
Mexican television stations broke into regular programming to report the end of a drama that had shocked a country that seemingly had grown numb to repeated kidnappings.As many as eight heavily armed men seized Alvaro Campos, 66, on Feb. 17 at a sports field named for his son in a southern suburb of the Pacific coast resort of Acapulco.
Tuesday morning, Alvaro Campos walked up to a police checkpoint outside Acapulco, identified himself and asked for help. He was whisked to the Acapulco federal police office, where he met his family and was taken home.
Police doctors who checked him said Alvaro Campos appeared tired but otherwise in good shape.
Jorge Campos broke off a team training session in Mexico City and flew to Acapulco to meet with his father.
Asked by reporters outside his home if any ransom had been paid, Jorge Campos replied: "I don't think so."
Investigators suspect the elder Campos was held captive at the town of Tixtlancingo, high up in the Sierra Madre mountains outside Acapulco. The town is a known stronghold of the Peasant Organization of the Southern Sierra, an activist group linked to the Popular Revolutionary Army guerrilla organization.
The Campos family supports the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, and Alvaro Campos had backed its candidate Rene Juarez Cisneros, who was elected governor of Guerrero state earlier this month.