BOGOTÁ, Colombia — A 62- year-old lawmaker held captive for eight years by leftist rebels walked to freedom in a western Colombia jungle Sunday along with the young guerrilla commander who had been his jailer.
President Alvaro Uribe said the rebel and his girlfriend would be rewarded with asylum in France.
Oscar Tulio Lizcano is the first Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia hostage to gain freedom since the July 2 rescue of former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt and three U.S. military contractors. His escape is yet another blow to Latin America’s last major rebel army, which is battling record desertions under withering pressure from Colombia’s U.S.-backed military.
The white-bearded Lizcano encountered a military road checkpoint three days after escaping with the leader of the unit that held him.
He looked haggard in a grimy black shirt and muddy training pants during Sunday’s news conference at a military base in the western city of Cali. He apologized for his somewhat incoherent speech, saying his captors had forbidden him to speak. He thanked “the person who had the courage, the valor to leave with me.”
“I was really sick,” he said, seated in a chair beside a standing Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos and police and military commanders. He said he had eaten little while on the run with his 28-year-old captor, known only by the alias “Isaza.”
Lizcano was taken to a clinic, where doctors said he was dehydrated and had signs of malnutrition.
Santos said the escape followed the Oct. 10 desertion of a second rebel, alias “Moroco,” from the camp where Lizcano was being held. Santos said that guerrilla disclosed Lizcano’s precise whereabouts to authorities, who already had a rough idea of the location and had been strangling the rebels’ supply routes.
Santos put their number at about eight women and six men.
Lizcano said food was so scarce in the camp that he ate a lot of palm hearts and sugar cane in recent weeks.
Colombia’s military has in recent months put withering pressure on the guerrillas known as the FARC, killing or capturing top commanders and spurring record desertions and betrayals among rebels with lucrative reward offers.
Uribe said “Isaza” would receive an as-yet-unspecified cash reward and asylum in France along with his girlfriend. The young rebel beamed at the news.
Uribe made the announcement as he prepared to meet in Cali with the leaders of about 30,000 Indians who had marched to the city demanding land and justice in the murders of indigenous leaders.
