The Colombian government will give a reward of 1.4 million U.S. dollars to four rebel members who betrayed their group and killed one of their leaders, Colombian Vice Defense Minister Sergio Jaramillo said on Monday.
Jaramillo said the money will be given to Pablo Montoya and three of his colleagues in the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the country's biggest rebel group.
The four killed Manuel Munoz, alias Ivan Rios, one of the seven main FARC leaders, on March 4 and handed over a computer of Munoz to the army.
They will be also be rewarded for offering information that will be useful to dismantling the FARC group and for opening a legal process against FARC leaders, Jaramillo said.
The money represents some 48.2 percent of the total rewards of 2.9 million dollars promised by the government for Munoz's head, and Jaramillo said the rest of the reward will be paid to relatives of those who also participated in combat against Munoz but lost their lives.
Noting that the promised rewards have encouraged FARC members to desert and betray their leaders, the vice minister said the government will continue with this policy.
Under Colombian President Alvaro Uribe's military onslaught, FARC forces have been almost halved to 8,000, according to government estimates.
The group acknowledged last month that its top leader and co-founder Manuel "Sureshot" Marulanda had died of a heart attack.
The FARC's second-in-command Raul Reyes was killed by the Colombian army in a cross-border attack on a rebel camp on March 1.
Source:Xinhua
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