Colombia's leftist FARC rebels urged international pressure on the United States Thursday for it to free a jailed guerrilla leader so he can take part in peace talks with the Bogota government.

Simon Trinidad was extradited to the United States in 2004 over the kidnapping of three Americans, and is serving a 60-year jail term.

The FARC and the government began the peace talks in Havana in November, and the guerrillas have been pressing Washington to pardon Trinidad and let him take part in these negotiations to end Latin America's last insurgency. The Americans have refused.

The head of the guerrilla delegation, Ivan Marquez, read a statement Thursday appealing for "international solidarity" with Trinidad.

Marquez also read what he was said was a US diplomatic cable released by secret-spilling website WikiLeaks that says there were no criminal charges in the United States that justified Trinidad's extradition.

Rather, it was then-president Alvaro Uribe who ordered courts and military intelligence to fabricate evidence against him and persuaded the Americans to seek the man's extradition, Marquez said.

Months after they started, the peace talks are still focusing on the sensitive issue of land reform, the first on a five-point agenda. The conflict in Colombia erupted in the 1960s because of the gaping inequity between wealthy estate owners and poor landless peasants.

Colombia sees leniency for rebels if peace deal reached
Bogota (AFP) April 29, 2013 - Colombian guerrilla leaders convicted of war crimes or crimes against humanity could get suspended sentences if government and rebel negotiators reach a peace accord, an official said Monday.

The two sides have been negotiating in Havana since late last year to try to end Latin America's last and longest insurgency, one that has ground on for nearly 50 years and claimed an estimated 600,000 lives.

Most of the leaders of the leftist rebel group FARC have already been tried and convicted in absentia of a variety of crimes, but none for crimes against humanity or war crimes.

However, attorney general Eduardo Montealegre said authorities continue to investigate whether any can be charged with such offenses.

And if they were charged and ultimately convicted, such sentences might be suspended if the peace talks in Havana yield an accord, Montealegre said in an interview with the newspaper El Tiempo.

It is the Congress which would have decide if this were possible, he said.

"It is a political decision which Congress would have to take at that time, but nothing is decided yet," he was quoted as saying.

Last year the legislature passed a constitutional reform that allows for suspended sentences and other forms of leniency for rebel leaders if a peace accord is reached and the FARC lay down weapons.

Suspended sentences should also be considered for army personnel convicted of human rights violations, the attorney general said.

"If we want to build stable and lasting peace, we have to include all parties to the conflict," he said.

Besides the estimated 600,000 dead, the conflict in Colombia has left more than 3.7 million people internally displaced because of the violence.