World in brief

French Guantanamo detainees return home

PARIS - Four French detainees held by U.S. authorities for more than two years at Guantanamo Bay returned home Tuesday - the first French nationals to be released from the U.S. base after months of talks - and negotiations were under way for the transfer of three others.

The four suspects arrived by plane at a military base in Normandy and were taken by bus to Paris to appear before counterintelligence agents and antiterrorism Judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere. The men - Mourad Benchellali, Imad Kanouni, Nizar Sassi and Brahim Yadel - were apprehended in the U.S. campaign that toppled Afghanistan's Taliban regime.

Under French antiterror laws, the four men can be held for questioning for up to 96 hours. They may be then be placed under investigation for criminal association with a terrorist enterprise, officials said.

BOGOTA, Colombia - Marxist guerrillas freed a Roman Catholic bishop unharmed Tuesday, three days after he was abducted in an effort to use him to deliver a political message to authorities, church officials said.

Misael Vacca Ramirez, the bishop of Yopal, was released close to where he was taken in remote mountains near Morcote, about 120 miles northeast of Bogota, said Luis Augusto Castro, the archbishop of Tunja.

Castro said a band of rebels belonging to the National Liberation Army, or ELN, likely abducted the bishop without orders from their high command, taking ELN leaders by surprise.

BORDEAUX, France - The first gay couple to be married in France vowed Tuesday to fight a court decision that annulled their union and said any redefinition of marriage should be taken up by lawmakers.

Stephane Chapin and Bertrand Charpentier, who exchanged vows on June 5, said they would appeal the ruling to the European Court of Human Rights if necessary and were confident of eventual victory.

Chapin and Charpentier last month exchanged vows in a highly publicized ceremony in the Bordeaux suburb of Begles. The government immediately said the marriage was not legal. In its ruling, the court said gay couples are covered under the so-called PACs legislation that grants nonmarried cohabiting couples of the same or opposing sexes some of the rights enjoyed by married couples.

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - The Netherlands has filed suit against Doctors Without Borders to recover $936,000 it paid in ransom to win the release of a kidnapped employee of the humanitarian group, the foreign ministry said Tuesday.

The suit, filed in Switzerland, is the latest installment in an unusual public feud between the aid agency, known by the French name Medecins Sans Frontieres, and the Dutch government. Initially the agency and the government denied paying ransom.

Arjan Erkel, a Dutch citizen, was released April 11 after being held in Russia for 20 months.

The Dutch foreign ministry said Tuesday it was suing to recover the money "because Doctors Without Borders promised to replay the loan but now doesn't want to do so."

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