You may not believe what you see in these videos
Jul 4, 2008 10:41 pm US/Eastern
Video Shows Hostages' Reactions During Rescue
Watch The Unedited Video In The Video Player On The Right
BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) ―
Video taken during the rescue of 15 rebel 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. Among those filmed is a very angry-looking Ingrid Betancourt.
American Keith Stansell nears the camera.
"I love my family," 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."
The local commander, alias Cesar, is put on camera but cheerfully refuses an interview. A Colombian hostage talks to the camera.
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, or FARC.
The agents, primed with acting lessons, posed as a media crew and members of an unnamed international humanitarian group to mimic the scenes of other hostage releases brokered by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez earlier this year.
The final images in the three-minute video show the hostages as they realize what's up — that after years in jungle prisons, they are finally free.
The moment in which Cesar and the other rebel who accompanied the hostages are overpowered was not captured on video. But the hostages' elation at being freed was recorded. Many had been held hostage for as long as a decade.
Betancourt, the former presidential candidate kidnapped in 2002, joyfully amazed and crying, hugs William Perez, an army corporal and fellow hostage whom she later credited for nursing her through her jungle illnesses.
"We waited 10 years for you!" exclaims Perez, who was captured by the FARC in March 1998.
In presenting the video, Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos told reporters that Wednesday's elaborate ruse intentionally mimicked operations in January and February, when Venezuelan helicopters with International Red Cross personnel and insignia collected six hostages.
"In the last two handovers of hostages," Santos told reporters, "there was always a cameraman sent by Chavez."
This time, however, the white-painted chopper had no insignia.
Also Friday, the lawyer of Cesar, whose name is Gerardo Aguilar, told The Associated Press that his client was completely hoodwinked by Wednesday's operation. He is now in a Bogota jail.
Rodolfo Rios told the AP that his client "only realized the deception when he was in the aircraft ... He also told me he was hit and that, after they immobilized him, they applied various injections."
Paraded past reporters on Friday, Cesar wouldn't say who had hit him. He had a black eye and bruises about the face.
A beacon and microphones were aboard the Russian-made Mi-17 chopper, allowing those overseeing the rescue to monitor its progress, a U.S. official told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the subject's sensitivity.
Santos said a U.S. surveillance plane was overhead monitoring the mission.
He denied reports in international media that Israel was involved in the operation, adding that it was "100 percent Colombian."
"Not a single foreigner participated," he said.
He also denied a Swiss radio report that the operation was an elaborate montage in which millions of dollars were paid to rebels as ransom in exchange for the hostages.
"If we were to have paid in this instance, we would be the first to acknowledge it," Santos said.
The government pays rewards for information leading to the arrest of FARC leaders. Colombia's government has a US$100 million reward fund from which it has already paid more than US$5 million, officials say.
(© 2008 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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