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Colombia accuses ex-official of murder

He is charged with collaborating with far-right militias.

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published February 23, 2007

BOGOTA, Colombia - A former director of the secret police under President Alvaro Uribe was arrested Thursday on charges of murder and collaborating with the country's illegal far-right militias, his lawyer said - the latest Uribe ally to come under scrutiny.

Jorge Noguera, former head of the Department of Administrative Security, or DAS, is accused of handing over a hit list of human rights workers and trade union activists to the paramilitaries. A number of people on the list later were killed.

One of those killed, university professor Alfredo Correa de Andreis, had been investigating the forced displacement of peasants from the Caribbean coast by paramilitaries, said Jose Strusberg, a lawyer for one of Noguera's former subordinates.

Noguera, who as a regional campaign chief also helped get Uribe elected in 2002, was arrested as he gave testimony in the chief federal prosecutor's office, said his lawyer, Orlando Perdomo. If convicted, he faces up to 40 years in prison.

Noguera has denied wrongdoing.

Human rights groups have documented extensive links between Colombia's security forces and the far-right paramilitaries, originally created by drug traffickers and landowners to wrest control of the countryside from marauding leftist rebels.

A recent scandal linking close Uribe allies with the militias was triggered in part by the testimony of a former Noguera subordinate - Rafael Garcia, currently serving an 18-year sentence for working with drug traffickers while employed in the DAS. Other key evidence came from the confiscation of a laptop from a leading paramilitary commander's aide.

Eight Uribe-allied federal lawmakers have been jailed, and on Monday, his foreign minister resigned as authorities investigate her family's ties to paramilitaries.

Noguera resigned from the DAS in October 2005 amid allegations that paramilitaries had infiltrated the organization. He was then named consul in Milan, Italy, by Uribe, who had defended his innocence.

[Last modified February 23, 2007, 01:16:24]