Colombia’s Prosecutor General Eduardo Montealegre on Monday rejected the FARC’s claims that captured French journalist Romeo Langlois is a “prisoner of war.”
“These claims from the FARC are nonsense. I think that the FARC had made a promise to the country and the international community that they would abandon kidnapping as a method of political struggle and I think the country has the right to require them to fulfill their word,” said Montealegre.
Langlois was captured by guerrillas on April 28, only a few months after the FARC publicly renounced kidnapping and only a few weeks after the FARC released what many had hoped were their last hostages.
The prosecutor called for Langlois’ immediate release and told press that “the country expects gestures of peace.”
”It makes no sense that when the Congress is debating a framework for an eventual peace process through a legislative act, the FARC perpetrates these acts which are obviously unconcealed war efforts and deserve the rejection of the country and international community,” said Montealegre.
Montealegre also told reporters that efforts to retreive Langlois in the Union in Caquete Peneya had so far been unsuccessful.
“The Prosecutor General’s Office was unable to enter the area because of security problems, for issues of public policy, and bad weather,” said the prosecutor.
Langlois is a journalist for French news network France 24 and was taken prisoner while embedded with Colombian security forces filming a documentary on counternarcotics operations in the southern department of Caqueta.
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