COLOMBIA: Former intelligence chief Jorge Noguera arrested for paramilitary ties

Colombia's former intelligence chief was arrested on Thursday (February 22) on charges of helping right-wing militias murder labour leaders, part of a deepening scandal touching President Alvaro Uribe's closest political allies. Jorge Noguera, who is currently the Colombian consul in Milan, was taken into custody after being questioned about accusations that he provided paramilitary leaders with names of union leaders and human rights workers later used as a hit list. Noguera's attorney, Orlando Perdomo, claimed proper procedure has not been followed. "There hasn't been a formal (proper) detention," he told reporters. "I am saying that the prosecutor made a decision within his sovereign ability according to the powers invested in him by the law. At the end of the process, the prosecutor that was listening to him during the questioning said to him, 'I believe that there are enough elements for you to stay in jail." According to Perdomo, Noguera, who was head of of Colombia's Administrative Security Department (DAS) from 2002 through 2005, has been charged with conspiracy to break the law and aggravated homicide. Eight members of Uribe's congressional coalition have been jailed for financing and otherwise supporting drug-running paramilitaries responsible for some of the worst atrocities of this Andean country's 4-decade-old guerrilla war. A ninth lawmaker is a fugitive. Earlier this week, the scandal claimed Foreign Minister Maria Consuelo Araujo, who resigned after her brother, a senator, was arrested. The paramilitaries were organized in the 1980s to help landowners fight off Marxist guerrillas. Both sides, branded terrorists by Washington, have grown rich on Colombia's multibillion-dollar cocaine trade. Paramilitary bosses had long boasted of their influence in Colombia's Congress and government. But not until the arrests started in November did prosecutors bring charges against officials suspected of colluding with the militias. Uribe, re-elected last year, is popular for cutting crime as part of his U.S.-backed crackdown on leftist rebels and for disbanding more than 31,000 right-wing paramilitaries in a deal promising them reduced jail terms and other benefits.

ITN Source | February 23, 2007

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