Commander of Terrorist Group Pleads Guilty to Taking US Citizens Hostage

Photo Credit: U.S. AIR FORCEA commander of a Colombian terrorist organization pleaded guilty Tuesday to hostage-taking charges involving three U.S. citizens.

Alexander Beltran Herrera, 37, a commander of the FARC terrorist organization, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to the 2003 hostage-taking of U.S. citizens Marc D. Gonsalves, Thomas R. Howes, and Keith Stansell.

The three men were abducted along with Thomas Janis, a United States citizen, and Sgt. Luis Alcides Cruz, a Colombian citizen, after their single-engine aircraft made a crash landing in the Colombian jungle, according to a press release by the U.S. Justice Department.

The release said that FARC members killed Janis and Cruz at the spot where the aircraft crashed. The FARC members told the three others that they were going to hold them as hostages while they made demands of the Colombian government.

FARC’s official name, translated into English, is the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.

Read more from this story HERE.