CALI, Colombia (AFP) — Colombia's army Sunday said it helped free ex-lawmaker Oscar Lizcano, who was held as a political pawn for more than eight years by Marxist rebels, as France offered asylum to the rebel jailer who set him free.
"Please understand that if I am incoherent, it is from being out of the habit of speaking," a long-haired, bearded and gaunt Lizcano, wearing mud-caked trousers, told reporters at an air base briefing here, offering thanks.
Lizcano briefly walked with some help from Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos, before sitting in a wheelchair and speaking by cellular phone with his wife.
Santos said Lizcano came into military custody because his FARC captor, known by the alias 'Isaza,' decided to leave rebel ranks three days ago, and fled his hideout with Lizcano in tow.
Santos said the army had been planning a rescue operation in the area for five months, and had the area cordoned off, when the rebel defector and Lizcano walked into view Sunday in the Pacific department of Choco.
So "simultaneously, while they were working on the preparations and keeping pressure on the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) unit that held Lizcano, the unit chief alias Isaza decided to flee three days ago," Santos explained.
"He fled and the two went looking for authorities, trekked across the jungle day and night for three days until this morning they stumbled into the Army's 14th Brigade. That's when the release, the rescue of Dr. Lizcano took place," the defense minister said.
It was quite a different story from the one some local officials gave earlier.
Henry Murillo, a top official from the western region of Caldas, told Radio Caracol "the army and the police, in a joint intelligence operation, succeeded in rescuing Doctor Lizcano at 8:15 in the morning (13H15 GMT)."
Murillo said the rescue operation was mounted near the Choco town of San Jose del Palmar, which borders Panama. He said the former member of the lower house, 63, had been held by the FARC's 'Aurelio Rodriguez' Front.
President Alvaro Uribe meanwhile said France had agreed to a Colombian government request to grant asylum to the defecting rebel leader 'Isaza.'
Uribe said 'Isaza' would receive the reward guerrillas receive for laying down arms, and that he would travel to France with his companion, a woman who deserted rebel ranks four months ago.
Doctors were examining the former hostage, authorities said.
And Lizcano's wife Marta de Lizcano said "this nightmare is coming to an end ... these have been eight years of suffering.
"But I urge the world to make more of an effort; because today, Oscar is free, but there are so many more people who are still left (held hostage) in the jungle. We have got to get them all out. Not one can remain kidnapped. It is inhumane."
The former lawmaker was one of a group of 29 high-profile abductees (three politicians and 26 military and police) whom the FARC have sought to swap for about 500 of their colleagues in arms who are behind bars.
The group also included French-Colombian Ingrid Betancourt, a former presidential candidate and Colombia's best-known captive, who was freed by the military nearly four months ago after six years in captivity.
Betancourt said from Vienna she was thrilled at Lizcano's release and urged the rebels to free all their captives as a gesture of goodwill.
"We need the FARC to change its policy and make things right, to clear the way for the possibility with those releases of ... a peace process in Colombia, which is what we all hope for."
Latin America's oldest and most powerful insurgency, the FARC has been trying to topple the Bogota government since the 1960s.
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