Colombian Official's Brothers Implicated in Wrongdoing

"Colombian official's brothers implicated in wrongdoing: A former paramilitary leader has alleged misconduct by two brothers of Colombia's attorney general," Sat, Feb. 02, 2008, BY GONZALO GUILLEN, MIAMI HERALD, El Nuevo Herald

BOGOTA --

The brothers of Colombia's attorney general allowed outlawed paramilitary fighters in 2005 to use the vehicles of a provincial public hospital one of them heads, a former paramilitary leader has told prosecutors.

Rodolfo Enrique Guevara Cantillo, former No. 2 in the Northern Bloc of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, made the allegations against Angel Maya and Hernán Maya, both brothers of Attorney General Edgardo Maya.

Documents and recordings to which El Nuevo Herald had access showed Guevara named Angel Maya, a physician who heads the hospital in Valledupar, and Hernán Maya, a prosecutor with the Superior Court in the city 525 miles northeast of Bogotá.

Attorney General Edgardo Maya said it is his relatives, who have faced other allegations of links to the paramilitaries, who must answer for their actions.

''Every time there have been allegations against relatives or friends, I have said that criminal responsibility is individual . . . and because of that I have asked [prosecutors] to carry out the required investigations with the rigor required,'' he said.

Angel Maya did not respond to calls from El Nuevo Herald for comment, and Hernán Maya could not be located on Friday.

The documents on file with the prosecution show Guevara alleged that in 2005 Angel Maya allowed the paramilitaries to use ambulances to transport wounded fighters, weapons and other supplies. He added that at the doctor's request, paramilitary gunmen threatened to kill two physicians at the Pumarejo Hospital who were promoting a labor strike.

Guevara described the physician as a ''permanent'' member of the paramilitary groups.

Wealthy ranchers and businessmen organized the paramilitary groups in the early 1980s to protect themselves from leftist guerrilla attacks at a time when the weak security forces were virtually ineffective in the countryside. They have been blamed for most of the worst atrocities in Colombia's civil war, including massacres of suspected guerrilla sympathizers.

Guevara made his complaints to prosecutors in October, and provided videos that show Angel Maya among groups of paramilitary fighters.

His statements also implicate a lieutenant in the army reserves who allegedly pilfered military supplies from a barrack, an active-duty colonel and a sergeant who allegedly helped protect the paramilitaries' movements.

Guevara surrendered in March 2006, along with most members of the unit that he commanded, as part of a general demobilization of some 30,000 paramilitaries following peace talks with the Colombian government.

He is now jailed in the Caribbean coastal city of Santa Marta, hoping to take advantage of the ''Justice and Peace Law,'' which limits jail terms for paramilitaries who cooperate with prosecutors to eight years.

Another of the attorney general's brothers, Jaime Blanco Maya, was charged in 2001 with participating in the murder of two labor union leaders at the Colombian branch of Drummond, a U.S. company that has a coal mine near Valledupar. His case is still pending.

The story at www.miamiherald.com