A policeman was arrested in northern Colombia over his alleged participation in the killing of nine of his colleagues by paramilitary group AGC, the institution announced Monday.
According to the police chief of the Cordoba department, Colonel Marcelo Russi, the policeman was one of five suspected cop killers arrested in the towns of Canalete and Puerto Escondido.
The official allegedly worked together with the paramilitary group in a series of homicides in the department that cost nine policemen their lives.
According to Russi, the arrested patrolman gave classified information to “Richard,” the local ringleader of the group called “Clan del Golfo” by the authorities.
The AGC assassinated more than 20 policemen in the north of Colombia between 2014 and December last year when the group announced a unilateral ceasefire.
The suspect is the second police official to be arrested on charges he helped the paramilitaries in their “pistol plan.”
Medellin police arrested the citizen security chief of the Antioquia province in November last year on claims he provided weapons to slain AGC chief “Inglaterra.”
Colombia police provided weapons for cop killings: prosecution
The AGC is a dissident group of the AUC, the paramilitary umbrella organization that demobilized under former President Alvaro Uribe between 2003 and 2006.
The group is suspected of controlling most of the country’s drug trafficking exports to the United States.
The AGC has also been accused of carrying out politically and economically motivated assassinations and illegal mining.
The group announced the ceasefire in December to push forward their proposal to demobilize.
This process has however been stalled in Congress, which was asked to approve legislation that would allow the group’s collective surrender to justice.
In spite of the group’s ceasefire, authorities and civilians have reported hostilities between the paramilitaries and their rivals, the ELN guerrilla group and dissidents of the FARC, a guerrilla group that demobilized last year.
Authorities have long been accused of colluding with paramilitary groups, particularly in regions like Cordoba where the state is traditionally weak.
