Colombia rebels not to release key hostages

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-03-11 16:10

BOGOTA -- Colombia's rebel group the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) has no intention of freeing its top hostages, a guerrilla that defected from the group told local radio Monday.

Pablo Montoya had been a member of the FARC for 16 years until he killed his immediate superior, the group's number-seven official Ivan Rios, last Friday for a US$2.6-million reward.

An aerial view of the former Revolutionary Forces of Colombia, or FARC camp in Angostura, on the Ecuadorean border with Colombia, Monday, March 10, 2008. [Agencies]

Montoya turned himself in to authorities, carrying the severed hand of Rios, saying he killed Rios and his girlfriend.

Montoya said the FARC would hold trials for the three US contractors currently held captive, in the same way that the United States had tried FARC fighters Omaira Rojas Cabrera, alias Sonia, and Juvenal Ovidio Ricardo Palmera Pineda, alias Simon Trinidad.

Former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, who a former hostage said was very ill, will not be freed because she is "a very rebellious lady," he added.

Betancourt, kidnapped in 2002, is currently held in southern Colombia's rainforest, he said. Former senator Oscar Lizcano, who has also been held since 2002, is in the west or northwest of the nation, in the hands of the Aurelio Rodriguez front.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has expressed concern about the fate of Betancourt, who has French nationality.

Sarkozy has offered to personally bring her back to France to her awaiting family should she be released.

The FARC has released six people since the start of the year to Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez, who acted as mediator between the FARC and the Colombian government from August to November last year, until Colombia's government ended his role saying he had broken with protocol.

Last week, the FARC turned over videos and other evidence showing that Betancourt and 10 other hostages are still alive.