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.
RSS