Colombia's FARC rebels free hostage lawmaker

This photograph of a video released by FARC rebels shows Colombian former lawmaker Sigifredo Lopez speaking while in captivity, in a house in Cali, June 21, 2008.

CALI, Colombia (Reuters) - Colombia's FARC rebels on Thursday freed a former lawmaker held hostage for nearly seven years in jungle camps in the last of three such releases this week by Latin America's oldest insurgency.

His two sons sprinted across the tarmac to hug Sigifredo Lopez after a Red Cross team ferried him by helicopter from the jungle to Cali, the city where he was kidnapped in 2002 in a rebel raid on a provincial assembly.

Lopez was the last politician the FARC was holding for a prisoner swap and the releases have raised speculation the battered guerrillas are seeking to gain political ground after a string of military setbacks in their four-decade war.

He was the only survivor among 12 provincial lawmakers captured in the assembly raid. Rebels said the others were killed in 2007 in a rescue bid, but Lopez said the FARC massacred them.

"My companions never deserved to be murdered like they were by the FARC," Lopez, gray-haired but in good health, told a rally that greeted him in Cali.

Piedad Cordoba, a left-wing senator who helped broker the releases and accompanied the mission, said she had brought back a communique from the FARC's top commander Alfonso Cano, but said she would provide details later.

Lopez, 45, passed his time writing poems and stories for his sons during his years in bug-infested camps deep in the jungle, but he was forced to leave them behind.

Rebels freed four members of the armed forces and a former governor this week. Analysts say the FARC, established as a Marxist-inspired army, is seeking more maneuvering room. But talks to end the insurgency appear distant and the FARC is still holding 22 soldiers and police captive for leverage.

Lopez was snatched during a daring raid by rebels posing as soldiers searching for a bomb at the Cali assembly. Guerrillas bundled the kidnap victims onto a bus and spirited them into the mountains.

A rebel video inside the bus showed the stunned lawmakers when they were told they were in the hands of the FARC. Lopez was last seen in a 2008 tape, greeting his family and asking the government to negotiate a deal to free hostages.

WEAKENED REBELS

Colombians were outraged when the FARC announced the deaths of the lawmakers captured with Lopez. The guerrilla group said the men had been killed when an unknown armed group attacked their camp, but later handed over their bodies.

The FARC once controlled large parts of Colombia, but has been battered by President Alvaro Uribe's U.S.-financed security campaign. Three top commanders died last year and rebel ranks have been sapped by growing desertions.

The rebels have little support and are branded a drug-smuggling terrorist group by the United States and Europe.

But the FARC -- Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia -- remains a force in some rural areas where state presence is weak and rebels were blamed for two recent urban bombings that killed four people.

The FARC says it wants to swap around 20 captive police and soldiers in a deal for jailed guerrillas. But the government and the FARC are deadlocked over terms for the exchange.

The rebels have insisted that Uribe pull troops back from an area roughly the size of New York City as a safe haven to guarantee talks over swapping hostages, as a first step toward peace negotiations.

Wary of past failures to broker deals with the FARC, Uribe has refused rebel conditions, which he says would allow them to regroup in an area key to arms and drug trafficking. He has offered a smaller zone under international observation.

(Writing and additional reporting by Patrick Markey in Bogota; Editing by Anthony Boadle)