A police officer who fled to freedom after eight years as a hostage of leftist rebels said he was held with three US military contractors and former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt.
John Frank Pinchao fled his captors, guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) near the southeastern town of Mitu, where he had been taken hostage during a rebel attack.
He walked for 17 days in the Amazon jungle before running into a counter-narcotics patrol on Wednesday.
At a news conference on Wednesday evening flanked by Colombian Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos, Pinchao told reporters he last saw the three Americans -- Marc Gonsalves, Tom Howes and Keith Stansell -- and Betancourt on April 28. He said Gonsalves was suffering from hepatitis at the time of his escape.
The three Americans were captured in February 2003 by FARC when their plane went down during a surveillance missing in southern Colombia.
He provided no other details about the health or well-being of the Americans, Betancourt or the other politicians and police officers being held with him at the time of his escape.
Betancourt was kidnapped on Feb. 23, 2002, while campaigning for president in the south.
She has become a cause celebre because of her dual French-Colombian nationality.
Holding up a thin-linked metal chain similar to the one he said was tightened around his neck and tied to another prisoner at night during his captivity, he recounted how he took advantage of a lapse by his captors to escape from the jungle camp where he and 12 others were being held.
"I hope it's not my fault that the others face difficulties now," Pinchao said while breaking into tears.
Following his escape, Pinchao said he had to walk, swim and crawl through Colombia's remote jungle before running into an anti-narcotics police patrol on Wednesday.
Along with Betancourt and the Americans, Pinchao is among some 60 political prisoners the FARC is using as political pawns to negotiate an exchange for the release of hundreds of jailed rebels.
Pinchao was kidnapped in November 1998, when 700 rebels attacked and held the frontier Amazon town of Mitu for three days, killing 53 people and taking another 61 hostage, Cantillo said.
Taiwanese Olympic badminton men’s doubles gold medalist Wang Chi-lin (王齊麟) and his new partner, Chiu Hsiang-chieh (邱相榤), clinched the men’s doubles title at the Yonex Taipei Open yesterday, becoming the second Taiwanese team to win a title in the tournament. Ranked 19th in the world, the Taiwanese duo defeated Kang Min-hyuk and Ki Dong-ju of South Korea 21-18, 21-15 in a pulsating 43-minute final to clinch their first doubles title after teaming up last year. Wang, the men’s doubles gold medalist at the 2020 and 2024 Olympics, partnered with Chiu in August last year after the retirement of his teammate Lee Yang
FALSE DOCUMENTS? Actor William Liao said he was ‘voluntarily cooperating’ with police after a suspect was accused of helping to produce false medical certificates Police yesterday questioned at least six entertainers amid allegations of evasion of compulsory military service, with Lee Chuan (李銓), a member of boy band Choc7 (超克7), and actor Daniel Chen (陳大天) among those summoned. The New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office in January launched an investigation into a group that was allegedly helping men dodge compulsory military service using falsified medical documents. Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) has been accused of being one of the group’s clients. As the investigation expanded, investigators at New Taipei City’s Yonghe Precinct said that other entertainers commissioned the group to obtain false documents. The main suspect, a man surnamed
The government is considering polices to increase rental subsidies for people living in social housing who get married and have children, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said yesterday. During an interview with the Plain Law Movement (法律白話文) podcast, Cho said that housing prices cannot be brought down overnight without affecting banks and mortgages. Therefore, the government is focusing on providing more aid for young people by taking 3 to 5 percent of urban renewal projects and zone expropriations and using that land for social housing, he said. Single people living in social housing who get married and become parents could obtain 50 percent more
DEMOGRAPHICS: Robotics is the most promising answer to looming labor woes, the long-term care system and national contingency response, an official said Taiwan is to launch a five-year plan to boost the robotics industry in a bid to address labor shortages stemming from a declining and aging population, the Executive Yuan said yesterday. The government approved the initiative, dubbed the Smart Robotics Industry Promotion Plan, via executive order, senior officials told a post-Cabinet meeting news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s population decline would strain the economy and the nation’s ability to care for vulnerable and elderly people, said Peter Hong (洪樂文), who heads the National Science and Technology Council’s (NSTC) Department of Engineering and Technologies. Projections show that the proportion of Taiwanese 65 or older would
RSS