Senator's sons freed in Colombia

Farc rebels have been fighting the Colombian state for 40 years

Colombia's left-wing Farc rebels have freed the two sons of a former politician whom they kidnapped in a raid on an apartment building in 2001.

Jaime Losada confirmed his sons had been freed but said his wife, a senator, is still in rebel custody.

Rebels in police clothing had abducted them from their family home in the south-western city of Neiva.

Ransoms from abductions are - alongside the cocaine trade - a major source of income for the Colombian rebels.

The Farc is Colombia's largest rebel group and has been fighting for a socialist state for about four decades.

Shocking raid

Mr Losada, a former provincial governor and senator, told a local radio station: "I am half happy.

"I haven't seen my sons yet, but they're on their way, and I have to keep fighting to free my wife Gloria and thousands of other people who have been kidnapped in Colombia."

The rebels separated his sons from their mother six months after the abduction, the Associated Press reported.

The brothers, Sebastian Losada, 18, and Jaime Felipe, 20, are thought to have been freed in an undisclosed location in southern Colombia.

The Farc raid on the high-security apartment complex in Neiva shocked many urban Colombians as it brought to their doorstep a conflict largely associated with the impoverished peasantry.