Langlois said that both the guerrillas and the government had played politics with his case, and he suggested that the guerrillas had delayed his release to coincide with the FARC’s 48th anniversary last Sunday.

After days of negotiations, Langlois was turned over to an international delegation comprised of a representative of the French government, the International Red Cross and former Colombian Sen. Piedad Cordoba. The delegation was expected to travel over land to Florencia, Caqueta’s capital, before flying to Bogotá late Wednesday.

“Although he’s wounded in one of his forearms, the journalist Langlois is in good health,” Jordi Raich, the head of the Red Cross delegation said in a statement. “We’re very pleased that this operation was successful.”

Langlois was filming a documentary about government drug eradication efforts when the brigade he was travelling with was ambushed. He said he was pinned down in the fighting and that an army sergeant he had interviewed at length died less than a yard from him. Langlois said he thought the officer might have been killed by the same bullet that grazed his arm.

If that soldier had been born in some other part of the country, he easily could have grown up to be a guerrilla, Langlois said.

This war is “the poor killing each other,” he said. “It’s supremely tragic. There are no good guys or bad guys.”

On his Twitter account, former President Alvaro Uribe accused Langlois of being too sympathetic.

“Langlois: It’s one thing to be journalistically curious, but it’s another to identify with terrorists,” Uribe wrote.

Initially, the FARC said Langlois had been seized in military clothing and that he would be considered a prisoner of war. On Wednesday, the reporter said he had always tried to tell both sides of the conflict and was “humiliated” that the guerrillas initially designated him an enemy.

Founded with Marxist underpinnings, the FARC have increasingly turned to drug trafficking and extortion to finance its survival. The group, which is considered a terrorist organization by Colombia and the United States, is thought to have about 9,000 active members.

Asked what he had learned from his ordeal, Langlois said he didn’t need the experience to “know the Colombian conflict or to know the rebels. I’ve been doing this a long time.”

“What I take from it is the conviction that one must continue covering this conflict,” he said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.