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FARC vows to hold US hostages until rebels are released

Colombian guerrillas vowed on Saturday to hold three US hostages for "60 years in a jungle prison," because a US court sentenced a fellow rebel to a similar term in their kidnapping five years ago.

The three US defense contractors, captured when their plane went down in rebel-held jungles in February 2003, will remain hostages as long as US and Colombian officials refuse to release captive guerrillas, Ivan Marquez of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) was quoted as saying.

Marquez, a senior member of the FARC whose real name is Marin Arango, spoke in an interview posted Saturday on the left-wing Bolivarian Press Agency's Web site, which has carried interviews with the guerrillas and published their statements in the past.

His comments follow the January sentencing of FARC commander Ricardo Palmera, known as "Simon Trinidad," who was extradited to the US and convicted in the three contractors' kidnapping. A federal judge in Washington gave him the maximum sentence of six decades in prison.

In the same interview, Marquez confirmed that the FARC will soon release four Colombian politicians held captive for years, including ailing former congressman Jorge Gechem.

The FARC, listed as a "foreign terrorist organization" by the US government, wants to trade dozens of hostages, including the three contractors, for hundreds of rebels imprisoned in Colombia, along with Palmera and a female rebel commander also held in the US.

"The Colombian government and the White House should think about not putting any more obstacles in the way of a humanitarian exchange, because sentences like this, in the end, simply mean that the three North Americans will spend the next 60 years in a jungle prison, in the power of the FARC," Marquez said, according to the Web site.
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