Bogota, Colombia – Interpol launched an international call Monday for the arrest of a prominent Colombian politician who is believed to have fled to Venezuela after being accused of colluding with right-wing paramilitaries to kidnap a political rival.
The notice came a day after President Bush reaffirmed his support for Colombia’s government during a visit to Bogota, praising President Alvaro Uribe for his handling of a paramilitary scandal that has ensnared several allies of the Colombian leader.
“The best way to heal wounds is for people to see fair, independent justice being delivered, and I believe that’s the kind of justice this government will do,” Bush said.
The wanted politician, Alvaro Araujo Noguera, is the father of former Foreign Minister Maria Consuelo Araujo. She resigned over the scandal last month. Prosecutors say they believe he fled to a ranch he owns in neighboring Venezuela.
Araujo Noguera, a 74-year-old former congressman and agriculture minister from the northern state of Cesar, was indicted March 2 for alleged involvement in the 2002 kidnapping. His son, Sen. Alvaro Araujo Castro, was jailed for the same crime last month.
Interpol issued the “red notice” – meaning Araujo Noguera is wanted for extradition to Colombia – at the request of Colombia’s government. It will be circulated to 186 countries worldwide, said Oscar Galvis, a spokesman for the DAS intelligence agency, Colombia’s equivalent of the FBI.
Uribe’s former domestic intelligence chief and eight of his allies in congress have been arrested for alleged ties to the militias, which have been behind some of the worst massacres in Colombia’s five-decade civil conflict. The paramilitaries are responsible for widespread land theft and much of the country’s cocaine trade.
Also Monday, chief federal prosecutor Mario Iguaran ordered the arrest of the governor of a northern province for his alleged links with the far-right militias, according to a spokesman for the prosecutor’s office who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to speak about the case.
He said prosecutors are investigating links between Trino Luna, governor of the province of Magdalena, and the paramilitary leader Hernan Giraldo, who is alleged to have been one of the largest drug-traffickers in Colombia.
Prosecutors say that Araujo Noguera was complicit in the abduction of a member of a rival political group as part of a campaign by paramilitary commanders to elect candidates they could control.
The husband of Consuelo Araujo, the former foreign minister, is an Associated Press photographer.
More than 30,000 paramilitary fighters have handed in their weapons as part of a peace deal brokered by Uribe, but human rights groups have criticized the accord as too lenient. It requires commanders to confess their crimes in exchange for a maximum jail sentence of eight years.
