Colombian rebels say 11 lawmaker hostages killed

BOGOTA, June 28 (Reuters) Left-wing Colombian rebels said on Thursday that 11 provincial lawmakers kidnapped in 2002 were killed last week in crossfire during a military rescue attempt.

Twelve hostages were taken by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, from Valle del Cauca's capitol building in a raid that shocked this Andean country for its audacity.

''Eleven deputies of the Valle assembly who we took in April 2002 died in the crossfire when an unidentified military group attacked the camp where they were,'' a statement issued by the FARC said. It said the raid occurred June 18.

The government said it did not know the location of the 12 hostages and did not know of any attempt to rescue them.

''There was no rescue order,'' Interior Minister Carlos Holguin told reporters.

Fabiola Perdomo, wife of one of those reported dead, tearfully told local radio she was awaiting confirmation of the news.

The 12 lawmakers were among about 60 high-profile hostages, including three American defense contractors and French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt, who President Alvaro Uribe wanted to swap for guerrillas held in government jails.

But Uribe and the FARC had not agreed on terms for negotiating the hostage exchange.

Betancourt was taken by the guerrillas during her 2002 campaign for Colombia's presidency. The Americans were captured the following year while on a mission to locate coca crops used to make cocaine.

Colombia is embroiled in a four-decade-old guerrilla war in which thousands are killed and tens of thousands forced from their homes by violence each year.

In the 1980s rich Colombians organized paramilitary militias to ensure protection from FARC kidnappings and land-grabs. By the late 1990s both groups, labeled terrorists by Washington, had become involved in cocaine smuggling and earned a reputation for massacring peasants suspected of cooperating with the other side.

REUTERS SM VC1842