Colombian top rebel leader captured in Ecuador

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, January 05, 2004

Colombian top rebel leader captured in Ecuador

A senior leader of the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), who was captured in a hospital in neighboring Ecuador, was brought to Colombia on Saturday, the military said.

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A senior leader of the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), who was captured in a hospital in neighboring Ecuador, was brought to Colombia on Saturday, the military said.

The military identified the detainee as Juvenal Palmera, alias Simon Trinidad, one of the 15 members of the FARC leadership.

Trinidad was arrested late on Friday while he was being treatedin the Ecuadorian capital Quito for a flesh-eating insect-borne disease, the Colombian military said.

"The capture of a top FARC official shows that terrorism will never prevail" in Colombia, President Alvaro Uribe said after Trinidad's capture.

Uribe also predicted more setbacks for FARC, which he said would eventually be eradicated in the country.

Trinidad is the highest-ranked member of FARC to be captured infour decades of war with the government. He was one of FARC spokesmen in a failed peace dialogue with the government from January 1999 to February 2002.

On board a Colombian army helicopter from Quito, Trinidad was handed over to Colombian authorities in Colombia's border town of Ipiales.

Colombian Defense Minister Jorge Uribe said Trinidad will face trial for 30 charges that include murder, kidnapping, sedition andterrorism.

FARC is the largest rebel group in Colombia with 17,000 combatants. It is considered as a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union and several Latin American countries.

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