Hostages shot in error

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32567, 29 March 1971, Page 15

Hostages shot in error

(N.Z. Press Assn. —Copyright) BOGOTA (Colombia), March 28. Two of the four West Germans freed after 24 hours in guerrilla captivity in Colombia are in hospital, suffering from bullet wounds.

All four arrived in Bogota last night after being flown from eastern. Colombia, where Army troops had fired on members of the Army of National Liberation. The wounded have been identified as Mr Karl Kehr, the supervisor of a forestry mission working in the jungle and Mr Jopp Arnold, a member of the mission, the latter is reported to be in a serious condition, with a lung wound.

Earlier reports that a third member of the forestry mission, Mr Klaus Lindemann, had also been wounded are incorrect.

The fourth man in the group, Major Hermann Kunz, of the West German Army, who is in Colombia as a tourist and for a police-dog con-

test, told reporters that the Army clash was only “a coincidental ambush,” and that the guerrillas had not replied to the troops fire. Mr Kehr and Mr Arnold were wounded by Army fire, he said. The group were kidnapped while driving to an airport to fly to Bogota for a reception being given by the visiting President Gustav Heinemann of West Germany. "A very ragged man came on to the road, shot into the air, and ordered us to stop,” Major Kunz said. "About 22 guerrillas then surrounded us, and took us into the jungle on foot. We walked a long distance.” Major Kunz said that they were well treated by their captors, who furnished them

with hammocks, and with clothes to protect them from mosquito bites. By ill-luck they and their captors ran into Army troops long stationed in the region to search for guerrillas. “The guerrillas did not shoot,” Major Kunz said. “A Colombian Army major shot six bullets, wounding Mr Kehr and Mr Arnold.” Both were later taken to the military hospital in Bogota, where a doctor said that the bullet received in the neck by Mr Kehr missed killing him by a fraction of an inch. It has been confirmed that the West Germans were carrying 400,000 Colombian pesos (about $NZ17,850) believed to be the forestry mission payroll.