PHOTOGRAPHER HELD CAPTIVE

BOGOTA, Colombia -- Leftist rebels seized a Reuters news agency
photographer while he was on assignment in a mountain town and said they
would put him on trial for publishing a photo of a rebel leader's face.

Henry Romero, a free-lancer who works regularly with the London-based
agency, was detained by guerrillas of the National Liberation Army, or ELN,
on Tuesday in Jamundi, a town near the western city of Cali.

Reuters' editor-in-chief, Mark Wood, urged Romero's immediate release.
"Reuters considers it totally unacceptable that a photographer who works
for us should be held captive by the National Liberation Army in Colombia,"
he said in a statement.

Calling the abduction a violation of the news media's neutral role in
Colombia's 35-year-old civil conflict, about a dozen Colombian and
international photographers laid down their cameras and held placards with
Romero's picture at a demonstration Wednesday in Bogota's central plaza.