Spies trick guerrillas into freeing politician held hostage for 6 years

INGRID Betancourt, the politician held for six years by Colombian rebels, was freed last night alongside 14 hostages.

In a dramatic rescue bid, military spies tricked leftist guerrillas from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) into releasing 15 people, including three Americans, Colombian soldiers and police, without injury.

The rescue is the most serious blow ever dealt to the rebel group, which considered Ms Betancourt and the three US military contractors their most valuable bargaining chips.

Ms Betancourt, 46, who is French-Colombian, tearfully called her surprise rescue "absolutely impeccable" and said she and the other hostages had no idea they were being rescued until they were airborne in disguised military helicopters.

"They got us out grandly," Ms Betancourt said, adding that the rescue was "a sign of future peace for Colombia". Her son, Lorenzo Delloye-Betancourt, speaking in Paris, called her release "the most beautiful news of my life" and said it had filled him with "an indescribable joy".

There was no answer at the homes of American families of the three US hostages, Marc Gonsalves, Thomas Howes and Keith Stansell last night.

Juan Manuel Santos, Colombia's defence minister, said intelligence agents infiltrated the guerrillas' ranks and led the local commander in charge of the hostages to believe they were going to take them by helicopter to Alfonso Cano, the guerrillas' supreme leader.

Surrounded by commandos, the guerrillas gave up without a fight as the helicopters took the hostages to a military base in Guaviare.

Ms Betancourt was abducted by Farc, Latin America's oldest surviving left-wing insurgency, in February 2002 when she was running for president.

The Farc group has been fighting to overthrow the Colombian government for 44 years.

Ms Betancourt's campaign partner, Clara Rojas, who had a child while in captivity, was released by the Farc at the start of this year in a deal brokered by the Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez.

Because she also holds French citizenship, France's government has campaigned for her release. Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president who had made her rescue a priority, said he was very happy.

The Americans were captured a year later when their drug surveillance plane went down. Since their abduction, their families have received only two "proof of life" videos.

The latest tape also showed the first images in years of Ms Betancourt, who had not been seen since 2003.

The images, along with letters and reports from other hostages, described a once-vibrant woman slowly succumbing to Hepatitis B, tropical skin diseases and depression.

"In all these years, I thought as long as I was alive, I must continue to hope," she wrote in a letter released last year.

She added: "I feel like the life of my children is on standby, waiting for me to be free, and their daily suffering makes death seem like a sweet option."

One former hostage said Ms Betancourt was kept chained to a tree. Others said she was often chained up and forced to walk barefoot as punishment for her stubborn attempts to escape.

Luis Eladio Perez, a former senator and hostage, described how he and Ms Betancourt once eluded their captors for five days while trying to flee through the unforgiving jungle.

Mr Perez grew progressively weaker, however, and Ms Betancourt decided they should return to camp. The two were chained to trees and their boots were confiscated, leaving them exposed to the bugs and snakes that inhabit Colombia's jungles.

Ms Betancourt's family waged a campaign for her freedom, organising marches and events in Colombia and France, where her case became a cause célèbre.

But none of the efforts could bridge the gaps between the guerrillas and the Colombian president, Alvaro Uribe, whose father was killed by the Farc and who made the group's defeat the cornerstone of his presidency.

The Farc had hoped to exchange some 60 political hostages for hundreds of rebels held by the Colombian government, but Ms Betancourt's rescue means they have lost a powerful negotiating tool.

The blow follows the death of its legendary leader Manuel Marulanda in March, along with two other members of the guerrilla group's seven-man ruling body.

PROFILE

INGRID Betancourt was a brash, in-your-face presidential candidate whose style angered both leftist rebels and Colombia's entrenched political class before she was kidnapped.

Her childhood was one of privilege, far from the poor, rural areas where the Farc has fought its war.

Before her abduction in 2002, Ms Betancourt blasted the Farc for trafficking drugs and kidnapping innocents.

An earthy politician, who usually wore jeans and a T-shirt, she had a penchant for offbeat publicity, such as handing out Viagra pills to give the political class "a lift".

Ms Betancourt insisted on campaigning in remote southern Colombia, even when others said it was too dangerous.

Before her kidnapping, death threats prompted her to ship her children, Melanie and Lorenzo, off to New Zealand to live with their father.

"I'll go all the way for the Colombian people, whom our political class has despised and robbed generation after generation," she wrote in her 2001 memoirs. "I won't give up, whatever price has to be paid."