Prosecution investigators on Tuesday arrested another former Congressman accused of having had ties to paramilitary group AUC.
Former Representative Rafael Castillo was arrested after AUC commander “Ernesto Baez” accused the politician of having received the support of his Central Bolivar Bloc to be voted into Congress.
Castillo was the replacement of Jose Manuel Herrera who was forced to step down because he also was investigated for ties to the group that is held responsible for some 14,000 human rights violations including murder and rape.
The arrested politician was one of the closest allies of former Senator Luis Alberto Gil who was sentenced to 7.5 years in jail in January but released last week because the judge ruled he had completed his sentence.
Dozens of Colombian senators who were elected in the 2006 and 2010 elections were sentenced for their ties to the now-demobilized AUC. The massive infiltration of the drug-trafficking organization in the coalition of former President Alvaro Uribe has popularly become known as “parapolitics.”