Uribe admits Red Cross symbol was used in Betancourt's rescue

Just hours after General Naranjo insisted that the idea was preposterous, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe admitted that one of the rescuers of Ingrid Betancourt and the fourteen other hostages had worn the emblem of the International Red Cross.

CNN broke the story earlier in the day, based on photos and video their reporter Karl Penhaul was shown.

The BBC has this.

Colombia's president says a Red Cross symbol was worn by a member of the military rescue mission that freed 15 hostages from leftist Farc rebels.

President Alvaro Uribe said his government had apologised to the Red Cross for the incident.

Misuse of the Red Cross emblem is against the Geneva Conventions and international humanitarian law.

According Uribe's statement a member of the military rescue crew got so nervous on seeing so many guerrilleros that he slipped on a Red Cross emblem he had stuffed in his pocket. The name of the soldier won't be made public Uribe said, out of "respect for our armed forces."

Although misuse of the Red Cross emblem is punishable, according Mario Iguarán, Colombia's General Attorney, that's only the case when the perpetrator abuses the cross to cause harm or to kill an oppenent. "As we know, during this rescue that wasn't the case," he told El Colombiano.

Mark Ellis of the International Bar Association disagrees. "If you use the emblem in a deceitful way, generally the conventions say it would be a breach. [Based on the information as explained to me,] the way that the images show the Red Cross emblem being used could be distinguished as a war crime, " he explained to CNN.
Here's Uribe himself, courtesy of El Tiempo website.