Betancourt 'Rescue' was Set Up

international | miscellaneous | other press Tuesday July 08, 2008 23:50 by Bazooka Joe

On Friday, Swiss public station Radio Suisse Romande quoted a reliable source as saying that $20 million had been paid to the FARC commander known as “Cesar” (real name, Gerardo Aguilar Ramirez). Ramirez delivered the hostages to Colombian soldiers posing as humanitarian aid workers. Geneva-based academic Jean Pierre Gontard is suspected of being the source of the leak but he denies this. Swiss Radio said the hostages “were in reality bought for a high price, and the whole operation afterwards was a set-up”.

Jean-Pierre Gontard

On March 1st 2008 the Colombian Government killed FARC spokesman Raúl Reyes (real name,Luis Edgar Devia Silva) and 16 others two miles inside Ecuador. Three laptop computers were found which Interpol concluded belonged to FARC. The laptops were found to hold extensive information about the FARC, their operations, connections and electronic communications to Jean Pierre Gontard regarding him being the "transporter" of US$480,000 which was delivered to FARC by him and French diplomat Noel Saez on June 30th. Gontard denies he handed over money to the FARC but Interpol claims the computers were not tampered with and the information in the electronic communications is unaltered.

The Swiss federal Department of Foreign affairs (DFAE) remains silent on the entire matter except to say they support Gontard for the work he has done to date. The DFAE justify their silence by saying 24 hostages remain in the hands of the FARC. Novartis CEO Daniel Lucius Vasella said on Monday that Jean-Pierre Gontard did a very good job negotiating and paying ransom in 2000 for two Novartis employees held by the FARC. Also on Monday, Betancourt thanked Switzerland for its mediation work.

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http://www.letemps.ch/template/international.asp?page=4...35612
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