BOGOTA—Colombian President Alvaro Uribe's cousin sought asylum in Costa Rica on Tuesday after prosecutors ordered him arrested for suspected ties to paramilitary squads in a deepening scandal for the U.S. ally.
The investigation of Mario Uribe, for years a congressman and the president's confidant, will fuel concerns among U.S. Democrats who oppose a Colombian trade deal partly due to worries over links between dozens of lawmakers and paramilitary commanders.
"We are in the headquarters of the Costa Rican Embassy in Bogota and we have held talks with the people concerned," one of Uribe's attorneys, Jose del Carmen Ortega, told Caracol radio. "This is in process."
Alvaro Uribe, a close U.S. partner, has reduced violence from Colombia's conflict by driving back rebels and negotiating the surrender of illegal paramilitaries who massacred peasants and dealt in cocaine in the name of counter-insurgency.
But more than 60 lawmakers—many from political parties allied to the president—now are under investigation in the so-called "para-political" scandal and at least 32 of those are in jail while prosecutors probe their ties to the militias.
Mario Uribe, a second cousin to the president and a former congressional leader, was ordered detained on conspiracy charges on suspicion he struck deals with former paramilitary commanders while they were still active, the attorney general's office said in a statement.
"Uribe is being investigated for a meeting he had with former paramilitary commander Salvatore Mancuso before the elections of March 10, 2002, and with Jairo Castillo Peralta, alias 'Pitirri,' in November 1998," it said.
The former lawmaker, who has previously denied any wrongdoing, will be arrested if he does not surrender to the chief prosecutor's office in Bogota.
Alvaro Uribe, who has received billions in U.S. aid to fight against Latin America's oldest insurgency, says the lawmaker investigations show Colombia's institutions are working. But he has clashed with the Supreme Court over its probes.
"This will have an impact on public opinion," said Rafael Nieto, a former deputy justice minister who is now a political analyst. "For one he is the president's relative and secondly he was for years a partner in Uribe's political fight."
Accused of Deals With Militias
Mario Uribe stepped down from the Senate in October last year to protect himself from questions from the Supreme Court, which investigates public officials. But the attorney general has kept up its probe into his ties with militia warlords.
Former paramilitary commanders have testified as part of their peace deal that Uribe worked out deals with militias to help him take control of farmland and also to seek their political backing.
Paramilitary groups originally were formed by wealthy land owners to counter rebels in areas where state presence was weak. But their influence soon mushroomed as they took control of large swaths of the Andean country.
Hundreds of former paramilitary commanders disbanded their armies under a deal with Uribe's government, which allowed them short jail terms for promising to confess their crimes and compensate their victims.
Rights groups and some U.S. lawmakers worry the former commanders have kept their criminal networks alive from their jail cells. They want Uribe to do more to curb militias and protect trade unionists before they back a free trade deal.
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