Sigifredo López is accused of helping rebels plan his own kidnapping after 11 fellow hostages were murdered
One of a dozen provincial lawmakers kidnapped by the country's main rebel group a decade ago has been arrested for allegedly helping the insurgents plan the daring daylight abduction.
Colombians were stunned on Thursday by the arrest of Sigifredo López, 48, on suspicion of murder, treachery and hostage-taking. The news was especially alarming because he was the only one among the 12 who escaped execution by rebels in 2007 under circumstances that remain unclear.
Authorities have not mentioned a possible motive.
López has said he survived because he was at a different but nearby location when the rebels committed the killings, mistakenly confusing for a military patrol another rebel group that neared the camp without notification.
Rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or Farc, had standing orders to kill their hostages rather than allow them to be rescued.
López has said he was held by himself for the next two years until February 2009, when he became the last politician freed by Farc.
He said at the time that he owned his survival "to a miracle of God".
"I hope that there is some confusion, or this is a mistake," Diego Quintero, the brother of one of the murdered deputies, said on Thursday.
He said he was led to believe from comments in a proof-of-life video of his brother, Alberto Quintero, that his brother and López were never held together.
López was arrested in the city of Cali, where he and the other men were seized in 2002 from the provincial assembly building by rebels disguised as security force members.
Officials in Colombia's chief prosecutor's office said López had helped the Farc plan the mass kidnapping.
They said former guerrillas had provided testimony that López participated.
One official said prosecutors had video of a man believed to be López offering detailed instructions on how to perpetrate the crime. The man's face is not fully visible in the video but his voice can be heard, according radio station La FM.
It said the video came from computers seized in November when the military killed the rebels' leader, Alfonso Cano.
La FM said the man appearing in the video explains where each deputy would be, the hours they came and went, and where the building's security cameras were located, as well as also noting that none of the deputies carried weapons.
Lopez unsuccessfully ran for Colombia's senate and Cali's mayor's office last year on the Liberal party ticket.
The party's chief, Simon Gaviria, called the accusations against López "macabre" and said he would ask the party's ethics committee to suspend López.