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Hostage makes dramatic escape from Colombia rebels

From Sarah Sultoon
CNN

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(CNN) -- A Colombian police officer says he walked for 17 days in the Amazon jungle to escape his captors, the country's revolutionary militia group.

After nearly nine years, Jhon Frank Pinchao is free.

Pinchao was captured by guerrillas from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, better known as the FARC. The leftist rebels are financed by the country's cocaine trade and known for kidnapping government and military officials. ( Watch Pinchao's account of his dramatic escape. )

Pinchao also had news of several other FARC hostages, including three Americans. "'The last time I was with three North Americans, Keith, Tom and Marc. Marc has hepatitis problems now," he said.

The three, Marc Gonsalves, Keith Stansell and Thomas Howes, are U.S. contractors captured by the FARC in 2003 when their plane went down while they were looking for coca crops in the southern part of the country.

"I also saw two civilians, Ingrid Betancourt and former Senator Luis Idalio Perez," Pinchao said. According to The Associated Press, Pinchao said he last saw all of them April 28, the day of his escape.

Betancourt, a senator and dual citizen of Colombia and France, was captured in 2002 while campaigning for president.

Pinchao said he escaped near the southeastern town of Mitu, where he had been taken hostage during a rebel attack, according to AP. He said he had to walk, swim and crawl for 17 days through Colombia's remote Amazon jungle before running into an anti-narcotics police patrol on Wednesday.

Although violence has decreased in recent years under President Alvaro Uribe, negotiations for the release of 60 key hostages has reached a deadlock. Uribe has been working to counter the guerrillas and negotiate the disarming of illegal paramilitary squads. The president's efforts have been backed by a U.S.-financed campaign.

At a press conference in Bogota, the capital, Pinchao showed a chain that he said his captors used on him and the other hostages. '"They would place them on us at 6 p.m. We would sleep with them until 6 a.m. They would chain us to each other's necks to sleep," he said.

"I hope they make it back soon, one way or another," Pinchao said of his fellow hostages. "I know that some day they will see the light of liberty. I would like to send all of them a hug from here. I ask God to protect them. I know they must be paying the price because of me."

Copyright 2007 CNN. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Associated Press contributed to this report.

Final leg of world tour brings Obama to London U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama met with British Prime Gordon Brown in London Saturday on the last leg of his weeklong overseas tour.

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