COLOMBIAN OFFICIALS PROBE URIBE ALLIES IN HIS HOME STATE

BOGOTA, Colombia -- An investigation that has already bared ties
between government officials and paramilitary death squads in six of
Colombia's coastal states has now widened to the home state of
President Alvaro Uribe, focusing on his administration's politically
powerful allies, judicial officials say.

The development could further complicate Colombia's efforts to secure
a free-trade pact with the United States, where some Democrats on
Capitol Hill are increasingly concerned about the growing scandal.

Colombia's Supreme Court, which is responsible for investigating
malfeasance in Congress, has received detailed evidence that has
spurred an investigation concerning three lawmakers from Antioquia
state, one of them Sen. Ruben Dario Quintero, Uribe's private
secretary when he was governor there from 1995 to 1997.

Investigators are also collecting evidence and interviewing witnesses
to establish whether there were ties between paramilitary groups and
other lawmakers, including Sen. Mario Uribe, the president's cousin,
said two high-ranking court officials, who spoke on condition of
anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the case. Quintero and
Sen. Uribe deny involvement with the paramilitary groups.

In Washington, Rep. Sander M. Levin (D-Mich.) said he and other
congressmen were holding talks with the Democratic leadership that
could lead to hearings. With Colombia pressing for the trade deal and
more aid, Levin said, Congress needs "to try to figure out exactly
what's going on in Colombia, exactly what is the role of the
paramilitary, how much a part of the government they are, how the
government is trying to address this."

"The people of this country expect us to do that," Levin added, "to
have oversight, to be active, and to not simply rubber stamp." Levin
chairs the House Ways and Means trade subcommittee.

The Colombian investigation into Antioquia comes as an opposition
lawmaker, Sen. Gustavo Petro, plans congressional hearings Tuesday
that will delve into the history of paramilitary activity in the
northwestern state.

Colombia's modern-day paramilitary movement began in Antioquia in the
1980s and expanded with the help of landowners, drug traffickers,
senior military officials and an assortment of companies, including
the banana firms that operate in the Uraba region. The illegal
militias, operating alongside the military, ejected Marxist rebels
from key regions of the state and, by the late 1990s, had spread
across much of Colombia, carrying out massacres of peasants and
assassinating leftist politicians.

As part of its probe, the Supreme Court will soon send a team of
investigators to Canada to interview a paramilitary turncoat, Jairo
Castillo, whose testimony has already helped put eight members of
Congress behind bars. Investigators expect Castillo, who received
political asylum, to provide a raft of new details, including
allegations that Mario Uribe and a group of paramilitary members met
to plan how to wrest control of private lands from owners not tied to
paramilitary commanders.

Castillo, in a telephone interview earlier this month, said he was
present at two meetings in 1998 attended by the paramilitary members
and the senator. "What we knew about him," Castillo said, "was that he
was a strong collaborator of the paramilitaries in that zone."

Sen. Uribe denied any ties to the paramilitary members. "I know
nothing about any investigation, nothing," he said. An aide later
produced a certificate from the court that said he was not being
investigated.

Court officials acknowledged giving the senator the certificate, a
common practice when a probe has not reached an advanced stage at
which charges are being prepared. But the officials said that a team
of investigators is nevertheless interested in talking to Castillo
about Sen. Uribe and his possible paramilitary ties.

Sen. Uribe heads a party allied with the president, Democratic
Colombia, which had five lawmakers in Congress until investigators
began uncovering links its members had with death squads. Two of them
- -- Sen. Alvaro Garcia and Rep. Eric Morris -- are now in jail. A
third, Sen. Miguel Alfonso de la Espriella, is being investigated by
the court for having been among a group of 11 lawmakers to sign a pact
with paramilitary members in 2001 that called for them to "re-found
the fatherland."

The investigation, though, goes well beyond Sen. Uribe, officials in
the court said. "We're interested in everything," an official said.

President Uribe has repeatedly said he supports the investigations.
But the developments are troubling for his government, which has
received more than $4 billion in U.S. aid to fight drugs and
guerrillas since his election in 2002.

Since the so-called para-politics scandal erupted last year, the court
and Attorney General Mario Iguaran have rooted out intimate details of
how members of Congress, governors and mayors in six coastal states
orchestrated fraudulent elections with paramilitary commanders and
then went about infiltrating and stealing from hospitals and other
public institutions while assassinating hundreds of adversaries. In
addition to the eight members of Congress who have been jailed, a
former congresswoman is behind bars, and nearly 20 current and former
members of Congress are under investigation.

Most of the lawmakers were allies of President Uribe. They
overwhelmingly supported a constitutional amendment that permitted him
to run for reelection in 2006. They also approved a law governing the
disarmament of paramilitary groups that was considered a near amnesty
by the United Nations. Colombia 's Constitutional Court later struck
down several provisions of that law, making it far tougher.

Now the investigation is veering toward Colombia's heartland. "There
is evidence in other [states], including Antioquia," a court official
said. "The court is moving steadily, without pause, on that."

The focus, by investigators from the court and the attorney general's
office, is the eastern states of Meta, Santander, North Santander and
Casanare. That brings to 11 the number of states -- a third of the
country -- where evidence has shown close collaboration between
politicians and paramilitary commanders..

Six mayors from Casanare, home to foreign oil-drilling projects, were
removed from their positions in recent days. In Cucuta, capital of
North Santander, Mayor Ramiro Suarez is under investigation for, among
other things, allegedly ordering the murder of a senior official in
that state.

But Antioquia, which includes Medellin, Colombia's second-largest city
and the center of industry, is the big target. Investigators want to
show how the paramilitary members ensured that allies won
congressional seats or remained in power. "It's about pacts between
paramilitaries and politicians," said the court official.

Myles Frechette, a former U.S. ambassador here who is supportive of
many of Uribe's policies, said that the investigation in Antioquia is
"going to be very uncomfortable for the obvious reason, that the
president is from there." Uribe, when he was governor, spearheaded the
creation of legal vigilante groups in Antioquia, called Convivirs,
which later morphed into paramilitary organizations.

Frechette, who at the time had warned the Colombian government against
creating the Convivirs, said turning the investigation toward
Antioquia is "an absolutely indispensable step."

"This thing should be pursued right to the end because if it is not,
it's going to leave some clouds there," he said.

Those under investigation, though, have said that the process has
turned into a political witch hunt. Sen. Quintero, in a telephone
interview, steadfastly denied accusations that he and others gained
higher office with the help of a powerful paramilitary warlord known
in Colombia as "the German" -- an allegation first reported by El
Espectador, a Bogota newspaper.

Quintero, who is close to President Uribe, said that those who are
making the accusations are simply trying to discredit the president's
security policies, which have been recognized as having eroded support
for guerrillas and restoring calm in many parts of the country.

"They're looking to harm this process that the country is now going
through," he said.