Colombia Extradites Rebel In Hawaii Woman's Murder--Hawaiia Woman Among Three American Victims Shot To Death

thehawaiichannel.com POSTED: 3:16 p.m. HST May 7, 2003 UPDATED: 3:19 p.m. HST May 7, 2003

BOGOTA, Colombia -- Colombia President Alvaro Uribe has signed an order to send a leftist rebel to the United States to face murder charges in connection with the 1999 murder of three American activists, including a Hawaii woman.

Nelson Vargas Rueda will be the first rebel extradited to the United States by Colombia.

Vargas is one of six members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, indicted in April 2002 in federal court in Washington, D.C., in the murders of Lahe'ena'e Gay of Pahoa, 39, of Hawaii; Terence Freitas, 24, of Los Angeles; and Ingrid Washinawatok, 41, of New York, a Menominee Indian originally from Wisconsin.

They were in Colombia to help set up a school system for the 5,000-member U'wa Indian tribe.

The indictment said the rebels kidnapped the three in February 1999 in northeastern Colombia. Days later, the kidnappers shot the victims. Their bullet-riddled bodies were found across the border in Venezuela.