Mario Uribe Escobar, ex-president of the Colombian Congress and cousin of President Alvaro Uribe, was arrested in Medellin on Wednesday on charges of collaborating with paramilitaries.
The arrest took place after the Supreme Court gave an order to detain him on charges of conspiring with various members of paramilitary organizations to commit crimes. Uribe is
The former paramilitaries accused
The decision by the court comes six months after the high court once again became able to judge and sentence ex-congressmen involved with paramilitaries, in what has come to be known as the “parapolitics” scandal. Before that change of procedure, congressmen who resigned to their seats were investigated by the Prosecutor General, which allows them to appeal against any sentence.