(10 Apr 2008) SHOTLIST
San Jose de Guaviare
1. Wide interior of airport with Juan Carlos Lecompte (right of screen), husband of hostage Ingrid Betancourt, talking to Pedro Arenas, Mayor of San Jose Guaviare, zoom in
2. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Juan Carlos Lecompte, husband of hostage Ingrid Betancourt:
"Simply, because there are so many rumours in this region that people have seen her, I want to go to various places to speak with people and to search for information and check, certify, confirm and have some certainty."
3. Cutaway of Lecompte and Arenas
4. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Juan Carlos Lecompte, husband of hostage Ingrid Betancourt:
"Well, I met with the medic yesterday. I relayed to him some things about Ingrid's health history. We found that she was vaccinated against yellow fever and malaria in March of 2001. He was very content with that because the vaccines are in force."
4. Lecompte with local officials
Bogota
5. Various of French Falcon 50 jet parked at CATAM's military airport
STORYLINE
The husband of hostage Ingrid Betancourt vowed on Wednesday to plunge off into jungle villages to hunt for clues to her situation following the failure of government-backed effort to aid her.
"There are so many rumours in this region that people have seen her, I want to go to various places to speak with people and to search for information," Juan Carlos Lecompte said after he landed in San Jose del Guaviare, a steamy provincial capital in eastern Colombia.
Lecompte told reporters he would drive to outlying villages to seek information.
He said he has not had any contact with the leftist rebels holding her.
There have been unconfirmed sightings of Betancourt in the area, where the rebels, far-right death squads and cocaine producers are common.
A citizen of both France and Colombia, Betancourt was campaigning for Colombia's presidency when she was kidnapped in 2002.
Former hostages who spent time with Betancourt say they believe she has hepatitis B and suffers from depression.
Chances of a quick release seemed remote after leaders of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, rejected a medical mission
lead by France and including Switzerland and Spain that sought to treat and possibly rescue her.
The French jet that brought the mission to Colombia took off from Bogota on Wednesday, headed to the French Caribbean territory of Martinique.
It was not immediately clear who was on board.
It had arrived in the Colombian capital on Thursday.
In a statement posted on the Internet on Tuesday, the FARC said it would not unilaterally release hostages and would only exchange Betancourt and other captives for rebels imprisoned in Colombia and the US.
The FARC insists that President Alvaro Uribe demilitarise jungle zones in southwestern Colombia where the two sides could hold talks and eventually swap prisoners for hostages.
Uribe has been equally insistent that he will not do so.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said Paris will not abandon efforts to free Betancourt and that he planned to travel to the region soon.
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