BOGOTÁ, Colombia — A Colombian prosecutor assigned to investigate the country’s largest former rebel group was arrested and accused of accepting a bribe in the case of a former rebel commander wanted in the United States, the authorities said Friday.

The prosecutor, Carlos J. Bermeo, had been assigned to a special court established to try cases of war crimes from the five-decade conflict between the government and rebels, which left at least 220,000 people dead and ended in a 2016 peace deal signed with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

But Mr. Bermeo, according to prosecutors, accepted money to stymie an extradition case involving a former member of the FARC, Jesús Santrich, who was arrested last year on charges that he had continued trafficking drugs after the group laid down its arms and given up its illegal activities.



The Colombian attorney general’s office said it arrested Mr. Bermeo and four others at two hotels in Bogotá the moment they were about to receive a payment of $500,000.