Former rebel heads to French exile with Betancourt

Dec 10, 2008, 2:24 GMT

Bogota - Wilson Bueno Largo, a young former member of Colombia's Marxist FARC rebels, left the country late Tuesday bound for exile in France.

Largo, also known as Isaza, gained hero status for freeing a kidnapped Colombian lawmaker, Oscar Tulio Lizcano, 62, whom he dragged to freedom in October, earning a 400,000-dollar reward.

The 28-year-old was accompanied to Paris by another former FARC hostage, Ingrid Betancourt, and his girlfriend, who deserted from the rebels three months earlier.

Betancourt, a former Colombian presidential candidate, who was freed by the military in July after eight years as a FARC hostage, proposed the exile to Largo, as a message to other rebels still holding hostages.

In a message to his former comrades of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Largo said the government had kept its promise not only to spare everyone who dropped their weapons, but also to help them.

Colombia prosecutors previously dropped all charges against Bueno concerning Lizcanco's abduction eight years ago.

France offered asylum to former FARC rebels if they swore off armed combat and did not face charges in their home country. Conservative Colombia President Alvaro Uribe in the past expressed hopes that this offer could encourage further FARC members to abscond together with the hostages they are guarding.

Betancourt ended a one-week tour of Latin America, in which she tried to gather support for the remaining 3,000 kidnap victims in Colombia. FARC is believed to still hold about 700 hostages.