Briton escapes Columbia abductors

He says he threw himself from cliff

By Phil Stewart, Reuters, 9/25/2003

BOGOTA -- A 19-year-old British hiker threw himself off a cliff to escape his suspected Colombian rebel kidnappers, who abducted him at gunpoint 12 days ago near the jungle ruins of an ancient Indian city, the army said yesterday.

Speaking in broken Spanish from his hospital bed, London-born Matthew Scott said he escaped while being marched along mountaintops with the other hostages: a Briton, four Israelis, a Spaniard and a German, all of whom are still missing.

The army said he threw himself off a cliff, while Scott, speaking unclearly in a foreign language, was less precise.

"We were walking high up in the mountain; the side was very steep, very high, and I heard a river to my right," Scott said, looking worn, with cuts on his hands and arms.

"I fell badly sometimes, and I'm lucky I didn't break my arms or legs," he told reporters.

Scott said he hiked directionless for days, sometimes during heavy rain, and without eating anything until he was found Tuesday morning by Indians who live in the mountains.

"He was dizzy and vomiting. Since he barely spoke Spanish, he didn't tell me what was wrong with him," an Indian, wearing long hair and a traditional beige robe, told local television.

More than 2,000 troops, backed by Black Hawk helicopters, have been searching for the hostages since their Sept. 12 abduction. Heavy rains hampered rescue operations this week, complicating aerial surveillance, officials said.

The foreign tourists had hiked up the Sierra Nevada mountains for two days from the Caribbean coast to reach Colombia's "Lost City," a spectacular 2,500-year-old Indian ruin.

Scott said that he did not know who his camouflage-clad kidnappers were and that the gunmen kept offering different identities.

He said all the hostages were in good health, though one of the Israelis was suffering from asthma.

Earlier yesterday, President Alvaro Uribe of Colombia said he suspected the Cuban-inspired National Liberation Army was to blame for the kidnappings. The rebels use ransom money to finance a guerrilla war.

Common criminals also take hostages, and a right-wing militia, accused of kidnapping, operates in the northern zone. More than 1,000 people have been abducted since the beginning of the year in Colombia, the world's kidnapping capital.

Getting the hostages back alive would be an important victory for Uribe, whose father was killed in the early 1980s by rebels during a botched kidnapping. He authorized a disastrous rescue attempt in May for a former defense minister, an elected governor, and eight military personnel, who were all shot to death by the rebels when Colombia's armed forces arrived.

"I speak every day, two or three times a day with the commanders of the [rescue] operations," Uribe said. "God willing, we will be successful."