Mistrial in US of Colombia rebel

Mr Palmera denied any role in kidnapping Americans

A US court trying Colombian rebel leader Ricardo Palmera has declared a mistrial as the jury was not able to agree on a verdict.

Mr Palmera, of the left-wing Farc rebel group, was on trial in Washington on hostage-taking and terrorism charges.

He was accused of plotting to hold three US citizens hostage after their plane crashed in Colombia in 2003.

Jurors heard five weeks of testimony but said after a single day of deliberation that they could not agree.

"We remain unable to reach a unanimous verdict on any of the counts and see no prospect of doing so," the jurors wrote in a message to the judge.

The judge had already sent the jury back to deliberate twice after they failed to come to a decision.

New trial

Mr Palmera, 56, also known as Simon Trinidad, was captured in Ecuador and later extradited to the US in late 2004 by Colombia.

He has already been convicted by a Colombian court of kidnapping and rebellion and sentenced to 35 years in jail.

US prosecutors said a new trial against Mr Palmera would start by the end of the year.

BBC Americas editor, Will Grant, says that authorities in Bogota and Washington had hoped that Mr Palmera's trial would make an example of him to top members of Farc.

The main charges in the US trial facing Mr Palmera related to the crash of a US plane in Colombia in February 2003.

Three US government contractors were captured by Farc when their aircraft crashed during a mission to find illegal drug crops.

The Americans - Thomas Howes, Keith Stansell and Marc Gonsalves - are still thought to be held by rebels in south-eastern Colombia.

Mr Palmera's defence said he was only a middleman trying to negotiate a deal between rebels and the Colombian government.

Farc has been fighting the Colombian government for more than four decades.