Video of rebel commander Marquez is real-Colombia government

By Luis Jaime Acosta

BOGOTA (Reuters) -A video released over the weekend of Colombian rebel commander Ivan Marquez, who had reportedly died last year, is real, defense minister Ivan Velasquez said on Tuesday.

Marquez, the well-known leader of a faction of former Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebels who returned to arms after rejecting a 2016 peace deal with Colombia's government, was thought to have died in Venezuela.

There had been questions about the authenticity of the video, released on Saturday, in which Marquez appears to support the creation of a legislative body to weigh changes to Colombia's constitution and discusses South American revolutionary hero Simon Bolivar.

"What I have been told by intelligence is that the video is real," Velasquez told journalists, adding it was not known where the video was filmed but that Marquez operates around border areas with Venezuela.

Marquez was injured in an attack in June 2022, sources had previously told Reuters, and treated at a hospital in Caracas, Venezuela's capital.

Marquez, whose real name is Luciano Marin Arango, was one of the negotiators of the 2016 deal, but abandoned it after his nephew was arrested and sent to the United States.

He later re-emerged as the leader of the so-called Segunda Marquetalia, a group of former FARC who have rearmed.

The government said in February it would begin new peace talks with Segunda Marquetalia, but formal conversations have not yet taken place.

Several major former leaders of the FARC who rejected the 2016 deal have been killed in recent years, including in Venezuela.

(Reporting by Luis Jaime AcostaWriting by Julia Symmes Cobb)