Released hostage Betancourt leaves Colombia for France

BOGOTA, July 3 (Xinhua) -- Former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, held hostage by leftist rebels, left Bogota Thursday for Paris one day after she was rescued by Colombian army.

The 46-year-old French-Colombian is due to arrive in French capital Paris Friday afternoon and will be welcomed later by French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

"I am eager to be in France, I am eager to be home," she said before boarding the plane with her two children, her mother and French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner.

Betancourt, along with 14 other hostages, were rescued on Wednesday by Colombian army in an "unprecedented" operation in the southern Colombian province of Guaviare.

Colombian army chief Mario Montoya said Thursday that the 15 released hostages held by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) could die if the rescue operation failed.

"(We) easily could have lost 15 lives and a helicopter and ended up looking like fools," said Montoya next to Colombian President Alvaro Uribe.

"The helicopter was on the ground for 22 minutes, the longest minutes of my life," said the army chief.

The helicopter-backed military operation, codenamed "Jaque," was conceived more than one year ago with intelligence agents infiltrating into the heart of FARC.

The intelligence agents had managed to convince the rebel commander in charge of the hostages to believe they were going to take the hostages to Alfonso Cano, the guerrillas' supreme leader, to talk with international mediators about hostage swap.

In the helicopter, the disguised soldiers had to trick the two rebels guarding the hostages to deliver their guns, citing the reason that they were on an international mission, Montoya said.

The hostages did not realize they were freed until the disguised militants told them they were "National Army."

Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos said the operation "will go into history for its audacity and effectiveness,"

According to Santos, another 39 helicopters had been standing nearby, ready to encircle the rebels and hostages should the rescue fail.

Betancourt, who was captured in February 2002 during a presidential campaign, said her rescue by the Colombian army "is a peace signal for Colombia."

Uribe has called on FARC to release the rest of its some 700 hostages.

The government is not interested in "spilling blood", and the rebels should also take the "path to peace", he said.

In an unrelated development, FARC rebels on Thursday freed Norwegian-Colombian hostage Alf Onshuus Nino, a 31-year-old mathematics teacher at the University of the Andes in Bogota.

According to Norway's foreign ministry, the release was unrelated to Wednesday's rescue and a ransom has been paid as required by the rebels.