Red Cross says recovers 11 bodies in Colombia probe

BOGOTA, Sep 9 (Reuters) The International Committee of the Red Cross said it had recovered 11 bodies from the area where Colombia's FARC guerrillas indicated they would find the remains of lawmakers killed in June after five years in rebel captivity.

Recovering the bodies would help authorities end a bitter dispute over the deaths by determining if the victims were caught in cross-fire during a failed rescue attempt, as the FARC says, or killed by the rebels, as the government charges.

''We have spoken with the families about the discovery of the remains of 11 people and we are going to do everything possible to ensure they are transferred soon, the Red Cross said in a statement yesterday.

Authorities must conduct tests to determine whether the bodies are those of the local lawmakers, kidnapped by the FARC from a local assembly in Cali in 2002, and investigate how they died.

Violence from Colombia's four-decade guerrilla war has ebbed under President Alvaro Uribe's US-backed security crackdown, although thousands are still killed or displaced every year.

The FARC has held scores of hostages for years for political leverage, including French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt and three Americans.

Uribe, whose father was killed in a botched FARC kidnapping in the 1980s, has refused rebel demands that he pull back troops from a rural area for talks on releasing hostages.

But the international community is trying break the deadlock over hostage talks.

REUTERS TB RN0659