By IANS
Bogota : Colombian soldiers have rescued a business auditor and a family court judge who had been under the captivity of the country’s leftist guerrilla group in Antioquia province and killed a rebel, officials have said.
Oscar Velez Rueda, an auditor for automotive assembly company Sofasa, and Orlando Martinez Sierra, a family court judge in the city of Caicedo, were abducted Friday by some gunmen of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) near Urrao, a town in the southwestern part of the province.
The army launched an operation in the area and after a stiff encounter they managed to rescue the two hostages, said Andres Rendon, Antioquia government secretary, Spain’s EFE news agency reported Monday.
A rebel has also been killed in the process, Rendon said.
The FARC, Colombia’s oldest and largest leftist guerrilla group, was founded in 1964 and today operates across a large swath of this Andean nation.
The rebel organisation has an estimated 20,000 fighters, and it has kept some high-profile people under its captivity. Recently, the group released two of its hostages as a goodwill gesture to Venezuela President Hugo Chavez, who was mediating between the rebel group and the Colombian government for a prisoner swap.