Colombian rescue troops 'posed as media'

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Colombia's minister of defense has admitted that two of the nine people involved in this month's daring rescue of 15 hostages held by Colombian rebels were pretending to be working for a Venezuela-based television news organization.

Juan Manuel Santos said his "Hollywood" rescuers who freed former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, three American military contractors and 11 Colombian police and military in a bloodless operation included members of Colombia's military intelligence unit who were pretending to be "a journalist and a cameraman -- TeleSUR," he told reporters during a day that included a visit with President Bush and his U.S. counterpart, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.

TeleSUR is based in Venezuela and primarily funded by that country's government, but also receives funding from other Latin American countries.

"The supposed journalist had a microphone that said 'TeleSUR,'" he said. "I don't know if it was the same one or a different one."

The actors "were drilled 24 hours per day in their own script," Santos said. "They set up a facade of a false humanitarian organization and they had to learn their lines. Because if they were caught or were asked and they did not respond correctly, they were dead."

Also included in the team were "a real doctor, a nurse" and members of the Colombian military who were pretending to be an Italian, an Australian, an Arab, a Cuban and a Dominican, he said.

TeleSUR's general director of information, Armando Jimenez, said the company was preparing a response.

Jean-Francois Julliard, deputy director of the press advocacy organization Reporters Without Borders, said authorities can endanger journalists when they pose as members of the news media.

"We think it is a dangerous practice because it puts in danger real journalists," he said.

The next time a reporter approaches FARC rebels, he said, the FARC members "will be very suspicious and maybe they will take some physical measures against these journalists because they will think that they are not real journalists."

In New York, Joel Simon, executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, also spoke against such activity.

"Impersonation of a reporter by a member of the police or military force increases the risks for all journalists, especially at a time when reporters in Iraq and Afghanistan are being kidnapped and accused of being spies," he said. "These tactics should only be used as an absolute last resort, as they endanger all journalists, particularly those working in conflict zones who rely on status as neutral observers to keep them safe."

"Operation Check" snatched the 15 high-value hostages from their captors, members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, who had been duped to believe they were to release the hostages to the custody of a humanitarian organization that would take them to another rebel camp.

The daring move also netted the capture of two rebels.

Last week, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe said that Colombian military intelligence used a Red Cross symbol in the mission.

Uribe made the admission after CNN reported on unpublished photographs and videos that showed a man wearing a Red Cross bib.

The man was a member of the Colombian military rescue team, Uribe said.

Video of the rescue -- shot by one of the phony journalists -- was heavily edited and silent when the government handed it out to the news media.

The Geneva Conventions prohibit the use of the emblem of the neutral International Committee of the Red Cross by parties to any armed conflict.

The president said that as the constitutional head of the armed forces, he took responsibility for what he described as a slip-up. "This officer, upon confessing his mistake to his superiors, said when the (rescue) helicopter was about to land ... he saw so many guerrillas that he went into a state of angst," Uribe said.

"He feared for his life and put on the Red Cross bib over his jacket." However, the confidential military source who showed CNN the photographs that included the man wearing the bib said they were taken moments before the mission took off.

Uribe said he was sorry for the mistake and has apologized to ICRC officials. There will be no official sanction against the man wearing the bib, he indicated.

The ICRC mission in Bogota said in a written statement that it "noted" Uribe's announcement.

Previously, the Colombian president and his top generals had denied that international humanitarian symbols were used in the mission.

International legal expert Mark Ellis, executive director of the International Bar Association, said the use of the Red Cross symbol could endanger humanitarian workers and violate the Geneva Conventions.

"The way that the images show the Red Cross emblem being used could be distinguished as a war crime," he said.

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