U.S. Indicts Colombian Terror Group

Striking a blow against a terrorist threat outside the Arab world, a federal grand jury indicted a Colombian rebel group and six of its members Tuesday on murder and a host of other charges.

The indictment, returned by a grand jury in U.S. District Court in Washington, accused the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, and the individuals of murder, conspiracy to commit murder, using a firearm during a crime of violence and aiding and abetting.

The charges stem from the 1999 slayings of three American citizens who were kidnapped while working with Indians in northeastern Colombia. Those slain were Terence Freitas, Ingrid Washinawatok, and Lahee'Enae Gay.

The grand jury said FARC and its members considered U.S. citizens to be military advisers and thus legitimate military targets.

The indictment also said FARC members kidnapped the three Americans on Feb. 25, 1999, and murdered them on March 4.

"These three workers went to Colombia to do good but instead met with great evil," Attorney General John Ashcroft said. "Today's action is a step toward ridding our hemisphere of the narcoterrorism that threatens our lives, our freedom and our human dignity."

The six individuals were identified in the indictment as German Briceno Suarez; El Marrano, also known as Fernando; Jeronimo; Gustavo Bocota Aguablanca; Nelson Vargas Rueda; and Dumar. Only single names were provided for Jeronimo and Dumar.

"Just as we fight terrorism in the mountains of south Asia, we will fight terrorism in our own hemisphere," Ashcroft said.

Ashcroft has increasingly sought to use U.S. anti-terrorism efforts against the world's largest drug traffickers as another way to stem the flow of cash and weapons to terrorists.

Ashcroft has said previously that members of FARC, have killed 13 Americans since 1980 and kidnapped more than a hundred others, including three U.S. missionaries in 1993 who are believed to have been killed.