Colombian Senate boots opposition lawmaker

Bogota, Agency
Colombia's Senate has expelled an opposition lawmaker accused by the Inspector General's Office of collaborating with leftist rebels, according to a document provided to Efe on Wednesday.

The ouster of Sen. Piedad Cordoba was formalized by Senate President Armando Benedetti, a member of the governing conservative coalition.

In a decision handed down Sept. 27 and confirmed a month later, the Colombian IG's office ordered Cordoba removed from the Senate and barred from government for 18 years due to her "collaboration" with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

Cordoba, who has helped broker the unilateral release of a dozen prisoners held by the FARC, says her meetings with rebels were authorized by the Colombian government and that she even provided officials with a videotape of her only encounter with the guerrillas' second-in-command, the late Raul Reyes.

The legislator has steadfastly denied any improprieties in contacts with the FARC to arrange the release of some of the politicians, police and soldiers the rebels were holding in the hope of trading them for jailed guerrillas.

The investigation of Cordoba, an Afro-Colombian representing the impoverished northwestern province of Choco, was spurred by data Colombian officials said they found on Reyes' computers after his death in a March 2008 raid on a FARC camp just inside neighboring Ecuador.

Benedetti could have delayed a decision on Cordoba's ouster for 10 working days, but he deemed Tuesday night's two-hour-long debate on the matter sufficient, though some senators said the IG's office had no authority to order a lawmaker's expulsion.

Sources on Cordoba's staff told Efe she continues to maintain that the action of the IG's office is "contrary to law" and will pursue all legal avenues to regain her Senate seat.

Cordoba, kidnapped by right-wing paramilitaries and subsequently forced into temporary exile by death threats, was also among the politicians, journalists and judges illegally spied on by Colombia's DAS security service under former President Alvaro Uribe, who left office in August after two four-year terms.