Bogota: Colombian President Alvaro Uribe pressured FARC rebels to free hostages including the Franco-Colombian Ingrid Betancourt after his government offered what amounted to a prisoner swap.

"I am today calling on those holding doctor Ingrid Betancourt and the other hostages to liberate them, to make a big contribution to the country, to hear this cry from the heart of the Colombians," Uribe said yesterday in an address to the nation.

He promised an amnesty and payment from a 100-million-dollar state fund to those who obeyed and renounced their membership of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), which Bogota has been fighting for four decades.

His words came one day after one of his senior officials, Colombian Peace Commissioner Luis Carlos Restrepo, offered to release FARC rebels from prison if their leftwing group freed Betancourt, 46.

The developments also followed accounts from ex-hostages and others that Betancourt - who was snatched in February 2002 as she campaigned to become president - was gravely ill.

Colombia's independent public ombudsman, Volmar Perez, said Thursday that Betancourt's captors took her to medical facilities in southeastern Colombia late last month.

"The information that we have, at least until February, is that the state of her health is very delicate, and her physical and health conditions have been deteriorating," he said.

He said that, according to residents in the area Betancourt was said to have been treated, the high-profile hostage was suffering from hepatitis B and leishmania, a skin disease caused by insect bites.

Source : PTI