A police officer who fled to freedom after eight years as a hostage of leftist rebels said Wednesday that he was held with three American military contractors and former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt.

Jhon Pinchao Blanco fled his captors, guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, near the southeastern town of Mitu, where he had been taken hostage during a rebel attack.

He walked for 17 days in the jungle before running into a counter-narcotics patrol on Wednesday, said police spokesman Sgt. Alberto Cantillo.

At a news conference Wednesday evening flanked by President Alvaro Uribe, Blanco told reporters he last saw the three Americans and Betancourt on April 28.

The three -- Marc Gonsalves, Tom Howes and Keith Stansell -- were captured in February 2003 by FARC when their plane went down during a surveillance missing in southern Colombia. Gonsalves has Connecticut ties. His father lives in Hebron and his mother in Bristol.

Betancourt, an anti-corruption congresswoman, was kidnapped on Feb. 23, 2002, while campaigning for president in the south. She has become a cause celebre because of her dual French-Colombian nationality.