BOGOTA – Twenty-five current and former municipal officials were arrested Friday on charges of colluding with rightist militias in the northwestern province of Antioquia, the Colombian Attorney General’s Office said.

The accused are accused of links with the Elmer Cardenas Bloc” of the now-demobilized AUC militia federation, acting Attorney General Guillermo Mendoza told a press conference in Bogota.

He described the detainees as “mayors, councilors, officials in the Uraba zone, who in some cases were elected in 2002 with the support of these armed groups.”

The defendants were part of a political movement linked to the Cardenas Bloc that was active in both the 2002 and 2006 general elections, Mendoza said.

Six of the 25 arrests took place in the town of Arboletes, where agents of the AG office detained the current mayor and city council president and two municipal department heads, as well as two former mayors.

While all 25 now faces charges of criminal conspiracy to facilitate the activity of illegal armed groups, some could ultimately be indicted for crimes against humanity if they are found to be linked to militia atrocities, Mendoza said.

In a related matter, Colombian police and Interpol agents on Friday arrested five city councilors in the northeastern town of Rionegro accused of giving government contracts to a paramilitary group that financed their election campaigns.

Nearly 100 current and former national lawmakers have been detained over the past few years in what is known as the “parapolitica” case, which also centers on officeholders’s ties with the AUC, a group blamed for more than 20,000 deaths.

Colombians are set to go to the polls Sunday for congressional elections and the presidential ballot is scheduled for May 30.

The incumbent head of state, Alvaro Uribe, saw his bid for a third consecutive four-year term derailed last month by Colombia’s Constitutional Court, and his party’s ticket will be led by former Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos. EFE