BOGOTA, Jan 23 (Reuters) - A top Colombian rebel currently in exploratory peace talks with the government has been released after serving most of his prison term for terrorism, kidnapping and rebellion, a local judge said on Tuesday. Gerardo Antonio Bermudez, known more commonly as Francisco Galan, a commander for Colombia's second largest rebel group, the National Liberation Army (ELN), was ordered released after serving around 14 years of his sentence. The ELN, started by students and radical priests in the 1960s as a Cuba-inspired group, is holding initial talks with the government aimed at securing a cease-fire and a peace deal after four decades of fighting against the state. "Francisco Galan has been granted conditional liberty after having served three-fifths of his term," Judge Alberto Ceballos told local Caracol radio. Galan, who was sentenced to more than 29 years but got a reduced prison term, was granted temporary release in 2005 to take part in the talks with the government in Cuba. He has also spent time in Venezuela as part of that deal. The ELN, along with the country's top rebel group, the FARC, has been weakened by President Alvaro Uribe's U.S.-backed campaign to reduce violence and tackle the huge drug trade that helps fuel the 40-year insurgency. The ELN in December released two police officers it had been holding as a peace gesture, but so far has failed to reach an accord on a cease-fire in four rounds of talks with the government held in Havana. Authorities said recently FARC fighters had been carrying out a campaign to wipe out their ELN counterparts as the larger rebel group pushed for control of drug and gun-trafficking routes in the south and east of Colombia.
