Former hostage Sigifredo Lopez landed in the Colombian city of Palmira to a hero's welcome Thursday afternoon, free after nearly seven years of captivity by Marxist rebels in the jungle. A Brazilian helicopter takes off Thursday from an airport in Palmira, Colombia, to pick up Sigifredo Lopez. Lopez was met at the helicopter that ferried him to freedom by his wife and two sons, who cried openly and deeply as they hugged him. One son held his father's head in his hands and spoke to him fervently as he kissed his forehead. Lopez's mother also hugged him before the freed hostage was swallowed by a mob of family members of other hostages who had died in captivity. After hugging well-wishers for more than 20 minutes, Lopez climbed into a white Red Cross sport utility vehicle and drove off in a four-vehicle convoy. The former regional legislator was abducted April 11, 2002, by rebels from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, better known as FARC. Lopez's release was the sixth unilateral one by the rebels in a week, but few of the kidnappings were as dramatic as the one in which Lopez and 11 other lawmakers were taken. He is the only one of that group who remains alive. A video taken by the FARC that day in April 2002 and released in late 2006 shows the first minutes of the bold kidnapping that led to his captivity. The rebels had been training for months. At a FARC camp, they