Miguel Maza is accused of taking payments from Pablo Escobar’s drug cartel to reduce security detail before Luis Carlos Galán was assassinated in 1989

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

Colombia’s supreme court has begun hearing arguments in the trial of a retired army general accused of taking part in the 1989 assassination of a top presidential contender.

Pablo Escobar's top hitman released early from prison Read more

Miguel Maza was head of Colombia’s intelligence agency when Luis Carlos Galán was assassinated while campaigning in a poor suburb of Bogotá. He is accused of taking payments from Pablo Escobar’s Medellín drug cartel to reduce the candidate’s security detail ahead of the fateful campaign stop where he was riddled with bullets.

Galán, a cartel-fighting politician whose youthful good looks and idealism drew comparisons to John F Kennedy, was heavily favoured to win Colombia’s highest office.

Maza, who has been jailed since 2013, denies any wrongdoing and said that he was also a victim of several cartel plots on his life.

The trial comes as Colombians re-evaluate the role of corrupt state agents in several high-profile murders at the apex of drug-fuelled violence two decades ago. That includes last year’s exhumation of former guerrilla Carlos Pizarro, who was killed 25 years ago while running for president. Family members and political allies have long accused bodyguards assigned by the state of standing by as an assailant opened fire on Pizarro mid-flight on a crowded airliner.

Authorities also recently dug up remains of three people killed in the army’s siege of the Palace of Justice in 1985, when guerrillas raided the building and took hostage members of the country’s supreme court. Witnesses say several of the suspected assailants and witnesses were seen escorted from the building alive and are believed to have been later killed by army officers.

“These aren’t isolated incidents,” Senator Juan Manuel Galán, the politician’s son, told The Associated Press. “There’s a common thread linking all these crimes.”