THE SPECIAL prosecutor’s office of Colombia says that it is investigating the deaths of 10 people linked to the killing of a mayor weeks after he had complained of being a marked man to President Alvaro Uribe.

A spokesman for prosecutor Mario Iguaran confirmed the inquiry on Thursday, in a statement three days after the death of Greys del Carmen Tirado. She was the latest victim tied to the trial of former Sucre governor Salvador Arana, accused of ordering the killing of mayor Eudaldo Diaz.

Also on Thursday, former state congressman Sigifredo Lopez was released by Farc after nearly seven years in captivity. He was the sixth hostage freed in the latest gesture by Colombia’s largest rebel group.

Mr Lopez had been in rebel custody since an April 2002 raid on the Cali statehouse, during which he and 11 other state legislators were taken prisoner. The other legislators were killed in June 2007, apparently by the leftist rebels in reaction to what they thought was a government rescue operation.

Dr Diaz (47), the mayor of El Roble in northern Sucre state, told Mr Uribe before a community meeting in February 2003 that he feared paramilitary groups would carry out their threat to kill him.

Dr Diaz had resisted the militias’ efforts to take control of El Roble’s treasury and health system for fear they would loot them, according to his son, Juan David. Dr Diaz also denounced Mr Arana before Mr Uribe, saying the then-governor backed paramilitary fighters.

Despite the warnings, Dr Diaz was kidnapped, tortured for five days and killed in April of that year. The mayor was on his way to a meeting supposedly to reconcile with Mr Arana when he was abducted.

Soon after the killing, Mr Arana resigned the governorship and was named Colombian ambassador to Chile by Mr Uribe. Mr Arana became a fugitive in 2007 after being charged in connection with the slaying. He was captured last year living in a luxury flat in the Colombian coastal city of Santa Marta.

Ms Tirado was the wife of Edelberto “El Chino” Anaya, who is being held along with Mr Arana for alleged involvement in the killing. She died in a hospital of injuries sustained after she was shot several times in Sincelejo, the state capital of Sucre, by unknown assassins on January 5th.

The attack came days after she approached the Diaz family and said publicly that her husband was prepared to testify in the trial of Mr Arana, which resumes next week in Bogota.

Nine other people have been killed since Dr Diaz’s death, the prosecutor’s office said. The Diaz family’s lawyer, Rafael Barrios, charged that all were eliminated to prevent testimony potentially damaging to Mr Arana.

Fearing that they won’t get a fair trial, Dr Diaz’s family members have asked the Organisation of American States’ human rights court to investigate the case.

Among the victims was waiter Diogenes Meza, killed in 2003 after telling police shortly after Dr Diaz was kidnapped that he overheard Mr Arana’s brother-in-law say he was holding the mayor captive at his ranch and was awaiting the governor’s instructions.

One of the biggest blows to the prosecution’s case was the December 23rd killing of Munir Cadavid Haller, a boyhood friend of Dr Diaz and a paramilitary commander who convinced the mayor to meet Mr Arana, apparently not knowing he was helping set the mayor for death.

Mr Cadavid had come forward in recent months to tell police that paramilitary fighters looking to do Mr Arana a favour had killed Dr Diaz to relieve the governor of Dr Diaz’s criticism and his allegations that the governor was corrupt.

– (LA Times-Washington Post service)