chloe
12-22-2009, 10:50 PM
By VIVIAN SEQUERA
Associated Press Writer
BOGOTA (AP) - The governor of a southern state was found dead Tuesday, his throat slit, the day after being abducted by leftist rebels in the the first kidnapping of a major Colombian politician since 2002.
The body of Gov. Luis Francisco Cuellar of Caqueta state was found not far from Florencia, the state capital where the 69-year-old was kidnapped late Monday, security official Edilberto Ramon Endo told The Associated Press.
A grim President Alvaro Uribe later went on national television to say Cuellar's throat had been cut, speaking in a sober monotone, in contrast to his anger early in the day.
"In the midst of pain we reiterate today all our determination to defeat these terrorists," he said.
Uribe said it wasn't clear when the governor was slain as 2,000 soldiers and police spread into the jungle highlands outside Florencia looking for the kidnappers.
He said senior military officials told him that "because security forces were in pursuit, the terrorists, in order to avoid gunfire, proceeded to cut the throat of the governor."
Cuellar was abducted by eight to 10 men in military uniforms who arrived at his home late Monday in a pickup, killed a police guard and blasted open the door with explosives, Gen. Orlando Paez, operations chief for the national police, told the AP. Two other police guards suffered shrapnel wounds that were not life-threatening.
The governor was driven into the mountains that border Florencia, where the pickup was abandoned and found in flames, Paez said.
The body, still in pajamas, was discovered lying at the top of a steep hill on Florencia's outskirts, said a police official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorizied to make public statements.
A furious Uribe, whose rancher father was killed by leftist rebels in a botched 1983 kidnapping, had ordered soldiers and police to rescue Cuellar, who was also a cattle rancher.
"We cannot continue to submit to the whims of the terrorists, of the terrorists who bathe this country in blood," Uribe told reporters earlier in the day.
http://www.ksl.com/?nid=235&sid=9115354
Associated Press Writer
BOGOTA (AP) - The governor of a southern state was found dead Tuesday, his throat slit, the day after being abducted by leftist rebels in the the first kidnapping of a major Colombian politician since 2002.
The body of Gov. Luis Francisco Cuellar of Caqueta state was found not far from Florencia, the state capital where the 69-year-old was kidnapped late Monday, security official Edilberto Ramon Endo told The Associated Press.
A grim President Alvaro Uribe later went on national television to say Cuellar's throat had been cut, speaking in a sober monotone, in contrast to his anger early in the day.
"In the midst of pain we reiterate today all our determination to defeat these terrorists," he said.
Uribe said it wasn't clear when the governor was slain as 2,000 soldiers and police spread into the jungle highlands outside Florencia looking for the kidnappers.
He said senior military officials told him that "because security forces were in pursuit, the terrorists, in order to avoid gunfire, proceeded to cut the throat of the governor."
Cuellar was abducted by eight to 10 men in military uniforms who arrived at his home late Monday in a pickup, killed a police guard and blasted open the door with explosives, Gen. Orlando Paez, operations chief for the national police, told the AP. Two other police guards suffered shrapnel wounds that were not life-threatening.
The governor was driven into the mountains that border Florencia, where the pickup was abandoned and found in flames, Paez said.
The body, still in pajamas, was discovered lying at the top of a steep hill on Florencia's outskirts, said a police official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorizied to make public statements.
A furious Uribe, whose rancher father was killed by leftist rebels in a botched 1983 kidnapping, had ordered soldiers and police to rescue Cuellar, who was also a cattle rancher.
"We cannot continue to submit to the whims of the terrorists, of the terrorists who bathe this country in blood," Uribe told reporters earlier in the day.
http://www.ksl.com/?nid=235&sid=9115354