Colombian governor Luis Francisco Cuellar found dead

Abducted southern Caqueta province governor dead

December 23 2009 : Colombian authorities say the kidnapped governor of southern Caqueta province has been found dead.

President Alvaro Uribe said the kidnappers appeared to have cut Luis Francisco Cuellar's throat as they were being chased by security forces.

Mr Cuellar had been seized from his house in the provincial capital, Florencia, on Monday. Officials said was the attack was the work of left-wing Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) guerrillas.

Mr Cuellar was the most high profile politician abducted since Mr Uribe came to power in 2002.

"The terrorists burned the vehicle in which they kidnapped the governor, further ahead they killed him, they slit his throat, they killed him miserably," said Mr Uribe, in a nationally televised address.

"They slit his throat to avoid making noise because they knew that the armed forces were in the surrounding area," the president added. "In the midst of pain we reiterate today all our determination to defeat these terrorists."

Earlier, he had said Colombia could not be "held captive by the whim of terrorists, terrorists who bathe the country in blood and who trick us everyday".

Ransom

Mr Cuellar was taken from his home by about 10 gunmen, who lobbed grenades at the building. One policeman was killed in the attack and two more were wounded.

More than 2,000 military personnel had been deployed in the search for the kidnappers.

The authorities had also offered 1m pesos ($485: £300) to anyone giving information leading to Mr Cuellar's safe return. But his body was found hours later, close to a burned-out vehicle on a road about 15km (9 miles) outside Florencia.

He had been bound and gagged and had several bullet wounds in his body. Explosives had been placed around him. The search operation is continuing, but the focus is now on catching or killing the abductors, says the BBC's Jeremy McDermott in Medellin .

But it remains unclear whether the kidnappers initially intended to kill Mr Cuellar, says our correspondent. In the past, high profile figures have been kidnapped in order to force the government to make prisoner exchanges.

Mr Cuellar had been kidnapped four times in the past 23 years, for between two and seven months each time, the Associated Press news agency reported. Speaking before the body was found, his wife told AP a ransom had been paid to secure his release on previous occasions.

Setback

Caqueta has been a stronghold of the Farc - Colombia 's oldest and largest left-wing rebel group - for many years.It was where French-Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt was kidnapped in 2002. The Farc has not claimed responsibility for the attack on Mr Cuellar, but is widely thought to have been behind it.

The acting governor of Caqueta, Patricia Vega, told local media she had no doubt that Farc was behind the attack. The rurally-based organisation, which finances itself through drugs trafficking, was once thought to have some 16,000 fighters, but reports suggest it now has about 9,000.

Our correspondent says the murder of Mr Cuellar will be a real setback for conservative Mr Uribe's determination to defeat the Farc.

The movement was thought to have been severely depleted after suffering several defeats at the hands of the security forces, but it appears to have rallied under new leadership and to be seeking to regain the initiative in the country's 45-year civil conflict.

Incidences of attacks and kidnappings have lessened, but the rebels are still holding more than 20 police officers and soldiers, often referred to as high-profile hostages, who were seized more than a decade ago.

It is also believed to have kidnapped hundreds of other people, mainly for ransom, over the years. On Tuesday, Colombian Defence Minister Gabriel Silva said the attack showed that "narco-terrorists" were making an effort to "show their capacity", but that their strength was weakening.

Mr Silva said the Colombian government was "firm in its resolve to confront" the rebels.