Ingrid Betancourt sat handcuffed in a helicopter with 14 other hostages, angry and frustrated at what she thought was just another maneuver by her rebel captors. Then she noticed something odd:
"Suddenly I saw the commander, who for so many years ... was so cruel, so humiliating, so despotic, I saw him on the floor, naked, blindfolded," she recalled Wednesday. "The chief of the operation said, 'We're the national army. You're free.' "
Colombian spies had tricked leftist rebels into handing over the kidnapped former presidential candidate and three U.S. military contractors Wednesday in a daring helicopter rescue so successful that not a single shot was fired.
"The helicopter almost fell from the sky because we were jumping up and down, yelling, crying, hugging one another," Betancourt said. "We couldn't believe it."
Six long years after being seized while campaigning in the Colombian jungle, she appeared thin but healthy as she strode down the stairs of a military plane and held her mother in a long embrace. She said she still aspires to the presidency. More...
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