(CNN)  -- A controversial Colombian senator who has obtained the release of 16 hostages held by Marxist guerrillas is the leading candidate to receive this year's Nobel Peace Prize, which will be announced Friday, said an independent research institute in Norway.



Sen. Piedad Cordoba, right, of Colombia reportedly is one of three top contenders for the Nobel Peace Prize.



Sen. Piedad Cordoba is the most likely recipient among three leading contenders, said the Oslo-based International Peace Research Institute. The others the institute named are Jordanian Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad, a philosophy professor in Islamic faith at Jordan University, and Afghan physician and human rights activist Sima Samar.



Though the institute considers Cordoba the front-runner, no single candidate has emerged as the clear-cut favorite, as sometimes happens, said Kristian Berg Harpviken, director of the peace institute.



"It really is quite open this year," Harpviken said.



This year's peace prize nominees include 172 people and 33 organizations. The committee does not release the names of the nominees.



The 50-year-old peace institute, which is often called PRIO, has no connection with the Nobel committee that awards the peace prize.



Harpviken said he believes the prize will go to an individual or organization engaged in the resolution of a protracted armed conflict.



"This is a [Nobel] committee that will perhaps be more proactive and will award somebody involved in a standing process rather than rewarding someone for past accomplishments," he said.



Cordoba, 54, heads Colombians for Peace, a group trying to end to the 45-year-old war between the government and the guerrilla Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as the FARC.



Since 2007, she has obtained the release of 16 hostages held by the FARC and has gotten commitments from the rebels for the release of several more. Colombian officials have said the guerrillas are holding about 700 captives.



A government critic and longtime peace activist, Cordoba was kidnapped by a right-wing paramilitary group in 1999. She was released after several weeks and then fled to Canada with her family, where she stayed for 14 months before returning home. There have been at least two assassinations attempts against her.



"While it is the hostage releases that have brought Cordoba and her organization the most attention, her role as a principal proponent of peace negotiations and of long-term reconciliation is probably more important to her candidacy for the Nobel Peace Prize," PRIO said in a release.



Harpviken said he had received many complaints because of his prediction about Cordoba, whom critics accuse of being too close to the rebels. "I do realize that this created some debate in Colombia," he said. "That's not terribly surprising."



Cordoba was nominated by Argentinean human rights activist Adolfo Perez Esquivel, winner of the 1980 Nobel Peace Prize.



Harpviken said Muhammad, an Islamic scholar known for trying to bridge gaps with other faiths, also is a leading candidate. "Certainly, the purpose ... he stands for makes him very strong," Harpviken said.



A member of the Jordanian royal family and educated at Princeton and Cambridge universities, where he received a doctorate, Muhammad, 42, "is playing an increasingly central role as an advocate of interfaith dialogue," PRIO said.



In 2005, the prince brought together 170 Islamic scholars from 40 countries for the Amman Initiative to work out what they called a "theological counter-attack against terrorism."



Two years later, Muhammad and other prominent Islamic scholars wrote a letter called "A Common Word Between Us and You" that urged mutual understanding and peace with Christians.



The letter, PRIO said, was partly a response to Pope Benedict XVI's 2006 lecture that many saw as an attack on Islam. Backing his words with his deeds, Muhammad gave what was considered a broadly accommodating welcoming speech when the pope visited Jordan this year.



"The importance of Prince Ghazi's initiatives to date lies first and foremost in the way he engages Islamic theology, institutions and leaders in a debate on the relationship between Islam and other faiths, thereby contributing a wider
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