BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) - A U.S. judge has taken out ads in Colombian newspapers and magazines ordering the country's main rebel group to appear in his Washington courtroom to face charges of kidnapping three Americans in 2003.| Attaboy, judge, that oughta do it. |
The announcement was placed in Spanish by U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan and is slated to be repeated once a week through September. Sheldon Snook, Hogan's executive assistant, said judges are required by law to send out a summons order and said the judge chose to issue this one in the Colombian press because "We don't have (the FARC's) address on file."
Besides accusing the FARC as a whole in the kidnappings, the jailed FARC leader Ricardo Palmera has also been named in the case. Palmera, who goes by the alias Simon Trinidad, was extradited to the United States late last year on a May 2004 U.S. indictment that charged him with "conspiring to kidnap" the three Americans.
