Court arrests Colombian lawmakers in scandal

Bogota, May 15: Colombian authorities has ordered the arrest of five lawmakers and 15 former politicians and businessmen for colluding with paramilitary death squads in a growing scandal entangling allies of President Alvaro Uribe.

Uribe faces pressure from critics at home and Democrats in the US Congress who are skeptical about approving a free trade deal and a military aid package because of suspected ties between pro-government lawmakers and the militias.

Eight lawmakers have already been jailed on charges they cooperated with paramilitary bosses who carried out massacres, murders and kidnappings in the name of combating guerrillas until they reached a 2003 peace deal with Uribe.

Authorities said the names of five current congressmen and the others appeared on a document signed with paramilitary leaders in 2001 at the Santa Fe de Ralito militia stronghold after the commanders took control of swathes of countryside.

''The court's penal chamber has issued warrants for the five lawmakers accused of signing the Ralito pact. The charge is conspiring to commit an aggravated crime,'' Supreme Court magistrate Alfredo Gomez told reporters yesterday.

The attorney general's office said it also issued warrants for 15 others, including former mayors, governors and local cattle ranchers. Most of the accused had been arrested by late yesterday. One was allowed to remain free because of his old age.

Uribe's government has received millions in US aid to help fight rebels who are still battling a four-decade-old conflict fueled by the cocaine trade. The rebels have been pushed back in the jungles and Uribe has negotiated the disarming of 30,000 paramilitaries.

Rights groups have long denounced collusion among the paramilitaries, political leaders and army officers, but the extent of the ties becomes clearer as investigators probe militia commanders about crimes as part of the peace deal.

Uribe says the arrests are proof Colombia's institutions are working and demanded authorities support the investigation.

But rights groups say the militia bosses have kept their criminal networks alive and remain influential.

Top paramilitary commander Salvatore Mancuso has promised this week to give evidence about politicians, army commanders, business leaders and foreign companies who he says collaborated with the warlords before their demobilization.

US banana giant Chiquita Brands International recently pleaded guilty to charges a local unit paid protection money to paramilitaries and agreed to a settlement of 25 million dollars.

Under their accord, paramilitary commanders must give full confessions of crimes from kidnapping to drug-trafficking and compensate their victims in order to benefit from sentences of up to eight years and avoid extradition to the United States.

But the government said on Monday it was probing a report of recorded telephone conversations of paramilitary bosses organizing crime from their jail cells which if proven could mean they will face justice in the United States, where they are classified as a drug-smuggling terrorist group.

Reuters >