Ingrid Betancourt angers fellow captives

When Ingrid Betancourt was rescued last July from the Colombian jungle, where she had been held hostage for six years by leftist Farc guerrillas, she was lavished with praise from all quarters, with the French president Nicolas Sarkozy granting her a hero's welcome in Paris and even a special service in her honour at Lourdes.

However, a new book written by two of the three US military contractors who were rescued alongside Betancourt, who once stood for the presidency of Columbia, is set to knock her off her perch. In Out of Captivity, partly written by Keith Stansell, a former marine from Florida, Betancourt (pictured) is condemned for arrogance and egotism.

Stansell, 44, said: "I watched her try to take over the camp with an arrogance that was out of control. Some of the guards treated us better than she did." He claims that Betancourt, who was kidnapped by the rebels a year before the Americans, would steal food from other hostages, refuse to share the scarce books that the group managed to obtain and even put the Americans' lives in danger by telling the guerrillas - wrongly, say the men - that they were CIA agents.

Similar complaints have been made by a second of the Americans, Thomas Howes, 55, a co-pilot of Stansell's surveillance plane, which crash-landed in the middle of the Farc training camp. He told a Bogota radio station that Betancourt was "a person who likes to control and manipulate" and that she did not like to share food in equal portions and was "[only] interested in herself".

Since her release Betancourt has continued to be feted in both France and Colombia, but former partner, Juan Carlos Lecompte, has been doing his own publicity rounds saying that he feels cheated. For six years, he stood by her and campaigned relentlessly for her release, but then as soon as she did emerge from the jungle she dumped him. "That was a big surprise," he said.

However, Marc Gonsalves, the third American held hostage, offers a different view of Betancourt in the book. He said that while she was often chained-up all day, he "never saw her complain or cry about it. She's a tough woman. She used to give those guerrillas a hard time". ·