I don't do cocaine, sorry.
"Colombia rebels free ex-US soldier" Associated Press, October 28, 2013
BOGOTA — Colombia’s main leftist rebel group released a former US Army private who the guerrillas seized in June after he refused to heed local officials’ warnings and wandered into rebel-held territory.
Right.
Kevin Scott Sutay of North Carolina, who is in his late 20s, was quietly turned over Sunday to Norwegian and Colombian officials along with the International Committee of the Red Cross in the same southeastern region where he had disappeared four months earlier.
In a statement, Secretary of State John F. Kerry thanked Colombia’s government for its ‘‘tireless efforts’’ in securing the Afghanistan war veteran’s release. Kerry also thanked the Rev. Jesse Jackson for advocating for it.
Then he absolutely must have been a spy!
Related: Auction Jackson
How's your son doing, Jesse?
The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, had said it was abandoning kidnapping as a condition for the launching of peace talks that began 11 months ago to end a half-century of internal conflict.
Colombia’s president, Juan Manuel Santos, resisted FARC efforts to make what he deemed a ‘‘media show’’ of Sutay’s release and no images were released of the early-morning jungle release or of his late-morning arrival in Bogota, the capital.
That's happened before.
The rebels had announced in July their intention to free Sutay as a good-faith gesture but the liberation was delayed.
Santos’s firmness on prohibiting a ceremonial release of Sutay included objecting to the FARC endorsed intercession of Jackson, who met with rebel leaders in Cuba in late September and said then that he would go to Colombia to lobby for on behalf of Sutay’s release.
Sutay was delivered at 11:30 a.m. local time to US government representatives at Bogota’s airport, according to a statement issued by the Cuban and Norwegian embassies.
The Red Cross said one of its doctors examined Sutay and he was well enough to travel.
It was not immediately clear whether he had flown on to the United States.
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"Former informant suing US for abandoning her" Associated Press, October 22, 2013
WASHINGTON — A former confidential informant working for the United States in Colombia contends in a lawsuit that the US government abandoned her when she got into legal trouble for her undercover operations and she wound up spending three years in a Colombian jail.
It's a pattern with the U.S. government. Don't take it personally.
Astrid Hurtado is seeking $15 million in damages.
Hurtado, 52, worked as an informant for ‘‘El Dorado Task Force,’’ a unit established by the then-US Customs Service to investigate money laundering. Her job was to impersonate a money launderer in Colombia and provide information to the United States. In return, she received a percentage of money seized. Hurtado said she was paid around $120,000 for her work from 1998 to 2000.
Isn't that kind of a conflict of intere$t?
She said she was arrested in Colombia in 2003 for the work she had been doing for the US government. According to her lawsuit, it wasn’t until four months later that the US Embassy in Colombia sent a letter confirming that Hurtado was an active informant, but a Colombian judge ruled the letter was inadmissible.
US government officials declined to discuss the case.
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"Americans among crash fatalities
BOGOTA — A small plane crashed during an antidrug mission in a remote region near the Panama border on Saturday, killing four of six people aboard. The military said five people on the plane were Americans and the sixth was Panamanian. Farmers reported the crash, which occurred about 1 a.m. There was no immediate information on a possible cause. The army said two others on the plane were taken to a hospital (AP)."
Also see: Governor begins trade trip to Mexico, Colombia
