U.S. Missionary Held in Colombia over Alleged FARC Links
An American missionary has been arrested in Colombia over suspected links with FARC leftist guerrillas, police and prosecutors said Thursday.
Russell Martin Stendal, a Christian missionary who is a longtime resident of Colombia, was detained Wednesday at police headquarters in Bogota. He presented himself to police after he learned of his arrest warrant.
Prosecutors said they had been investigating Stendal over suspicions that he provided logistical support to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the main rebel group in Colombia's 50-year-old civil war.
"Apparently he collaborated to set up secret stations to care for wounded and sick fighters," a source from the prosecutor's office told Agence France-Presse.
A police report also said he is accused of providing "electronic and communications" support to the group.
Stendal was expected to be charged for "rebellion" by prosecutors in the Cundinamarca department in central Colombia, the source said.
Local media said Stendal's lawyer Eder Castro confirmed he had been arrested, but said he was a dedicated missionary, not a criminal.
Castro told the El Tiempo newspaper that Stendal was in Colombia to "distribute bibles and preach the word to everyone, he has traveled to some of the most dangerous areas of the country to evangelize."
Colombia's five-decade-old conflict is estimated to have claimed some 220,000 lives.
FARC and the government have been in stop-start peace talks in Havana since November 2012.
Source: Agence France Presse
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