Colombian escapee saw rebel-held US hostages

BOGOTA, May 16 (Reuters) A Colombian police officer who escaped after nearly nine years in rebel captivity said today he was held hostage until last month with three US contract workers and French-Colombian Ingrid Betancourt.

Gaunt-faced and thin in a police uniform, Jhon Frank Pinchao described how he slipped from chains the guerrillas used to hold prisoners and fled for more than two weeks through the jungle before he was found by a police patrol.

''They were moving us from one camp to another every few months,'' the officer told reporters after meeting with President Alvaro Uribe in Bogota.

''The last time I saw them was April 28,'' he said when asked about Betancourt and the three US citizens.

Guerrillas from the country's largest rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, kidnapped the three Americans in 2003 when their light aircraft crashed on a drug eradication mission.

Pinchao's account was the first concrete news about the three men Thomas Howes, Marc Gonsalves and Keith Stansell since a Colombian journalist released a video of them at a secret jungle hide-out in October 2003.

The FARC, fighting a four-decade conflict fueled by the cocaine trade, has often kidnapped police, soldiers and politicians for ransom or for political leverage in talks with the government.

Howes, Gonsalves and Stansell were captured after their surveillance plane went down while spotting coca crops used to make cocaine. Rebels shot another American and a Colombian who were also on the aircraft.

Betancourt, who has dual French-Colombian nationality, was a presidential candidate when she was taken hostage in 2002.

Pinchao was captured by the FARC when guerrillas attacked a police base in 1998, killing some officers and taking more than 60 hostage. He said he was held with a group of 13 hostages, including some other police officers.

All of the hostages were suffering from ailments after years in the jungle, including Gonsalves who has hepatitis, Pinchao said.

''I hope they can return soon, God protect them,'' he said, breaking into tears.

Violence from Colombia's conflict has decreased under Uribe, who has led a US-financed campaign to counter the guerrillas and negotiate the disarming of illegal paramilitary squads who once fought them in a dirty war.

But kidnapping is a sensitive issue in Colombia, where hundreds are still held.

Colombia's foreign minister, Fernando Araujo, was named to his post shortly after escaping from the FARC in January after six years in captivity.

The FARC is still battling mostly in remote, rural areas.

Uribe and the guerrillas are deadlocked over how to began talks about exchanging around 60 key hostages for jailed rebels as a step toward possible peace negotiations.

''The principle thought of every kidnap victim every second of the day is freedom,'' Pinchao said. ''I had a chance and I took it.'' REUTERS GL HS1139