BOGOTA, Dec. 31 (Xinhuanet) -- Colombia extradited to the United States one of the top leaders of the rebel Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) on Friday.

    The Colombian authorities handed over Ricardo Ovidio to US agents who took him aboard a plane of the US Drug Enforcement Agency and flew to Washington.

    A court in Washington accused the 54-year-old Ovidio of drug trafficking and the kidnapping of three US citizens.

    Ovidio, an economist and a former banker, was captured in January 2004 in Quito, Ecuador, whose authorities handed him over to Colombia.

    The Colombian government said the extradition was in retaliation for FARC's refusal to free 63 hostages, including US citizens.

    Despite the insistence of the government and several sectors ofthe country on FARC's release of the hostages, the guerrilla organization did not respond to the proposal of the government, whose ultimatum expired on Thursday.

    Colombia has been plagued by a four-decade civil war, in which leftist rebels, far-right paramilitaries and government troops fight one another, killing about 3,500 people a year. Enditem