BOGOTA, Colombia — Video taken during the rescue of 15 hostages shows them filing grim-faced toward the helicopter that would fly them to safety, then hugging one another and crying with joy after they are aloft and realize they are free.
In the videotape presented Friday at Colombia’s military headquarters, the hostages’ hands are bound with plastic for what they believe is a flight to another rebel camp.
“I love my family,” Keith Stansell, one of three Americans freed in the operation, tells the cameraman in a big jungle clearing next to a coca field. “Pray a lot.”
Among those filmed is a very angry-looking Ingrid Betancourt, a former Colombian presidential candidate.
The video was shot by one member of a “cast” of Colombian military intelligence agents who tricked rebels into thinking they were handing over the hostages under orders from a top commander of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.
Some hostages had been held hostage for as long as a decade.
The video can be viewed on YouTube at www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgkMSsCyhfc.
Afghanistan: Deadly U.S. airstrikes
The U.S. military said airstrikes by its attack helicopters hit two vehicles carrying insurgents in eastern Afghanistan. The province’s governor said 22 civilians were killed. A spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition said Friday the airstrikes in Nuristan province hit militants who attacked a U.S. military base with mortars. The U.S. military identified a soldier who died Wednesday: Army Spc. Estell L. Turner, 43, of Sioux Falls, S.D., had been badly wounded on June 28 in Malikheyl when his vehicle struck an explosive.
Iran: Positive about incentives
Iran delivered a “constructive” preliminary response Friday to a package of incentives meant to convince the nation to curtail parts of its nuclear program, European and Iranian officials said. Backed by the U.S. and other world powers, the EU in June delivered a package of potential economic and political incentives meant to convince Tehran to stop enriching uranium.
Mexico: Three men decapitated
Mexican authorities say they have found the bodies of three decapitated men accompanied by a dead snake and threatening messages. The bodies were found Friday in a car trunk in Culiacan. Authorities say the messages found with the bodies contained threats against Arturo Beltran Leyva, a reputed leader of the Sinaloa drug cartel. More than 4,000 people have been killed in drug-related violence in Mexico since 2005.
Virginia: Bush greets new citizens
President Bush addressed the annual Independence Day naturalization ceremony on Friday at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, where he welcomed dozens of new American citizens from 30 countries. The 74 new citizens (72 adults and two children) filed one by one across a sun-drenched stage, and each shook hands with his or her new president.
N.Y.: Statue crown may reopen
The National Park Service is considering reopening Lady Liberty’s crown for the first time since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, according to documents a congressman released Friday. The park service requested bids last month to study what it would take to safely open the Statue of Liberty’s iconic headpiece to the public, documents show. Visitors are now limited to the statue’s 154-foot-tall pedestal.
Minnesota: EBay vote-for-sale charges
A college student claimed it was all a joke when he put his vote in this fall’s presidential election up for sale on the Web auction site eBay. But prosecutors didn’t see the humor. University of Minnesota student Max P. Sanders, 19, was charged with a felony Thursday in Hennepin County District Court after allegedly asking for a minimum of $10 in exchange for voting for the bidder’s preferred candidate. Sanders was charged with one count of bribery, treating and soliciting under an 1893 state law that makes it a crime to offer to buy or sell a vote. The offer on eBay got no bidders.
From Herald news services
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