Colombia rebels traded hostage ex-governor for brother

A former governor in Colombia who was held hostage for nearly three years by a leftist guerrilla group has said that the rebels had released him in exchange for his brother.
Patrocinio Sanchez, the former governor of the western department of Choco, yesterday said that after he fell ill in captivity, the National Liberation Army (ELN) set him free, but only on condition that his brother Odin take his place.
"The guerrillas told me they were going to free me and do an exchange, and that the exchange was with my brother," Sanchez said in an interview on Blu Radio.

"I wasn't able to see my brother, but they tell me... He did take my place."
The ELN is the second-largest guerrilla group in a messy conflict that has dragged on for more than 50 years. The largest is rival leftist group the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
Sanchez was freed on April 3, four days after the Colombian government and the ELN announced they had agreed to begin peace talks.

The release of the prominent hostage raised optimism around the new peace process, which joins one already under way with the FARC.
But Interior Minister Juan Fernando Cristo said Wednesday there was "confusion" around Sanchez's case.

"If the ELN has Odin Sanchez, what they did is reprehensible, deplorable... And we demand his immediate release," he said.
"We can't start a negotiation process with the ELN acting this way."
The government has called on the ELN to release all its hostages -- an unknown number -- as a condition for opening talks.