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CARACAS: Venezuelan police captured a leader of a Colombia-linked paramilitary force, the interior minister announced Saturday amid sky-high military tensions between the South American neighbours.
Magaly Janeth Moreno Vega was captured Thursday by Venezuelan police in Maracaibo near the countries' northern border, said Interior Minister Tareck El Aissami, describing the 39-year-old wanted by Interpol as the "paramilitary chief" of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC).
"She is nicknamed... 'The Pearl' within the AUC" and "handles extremely important information," El Aissami said.
Bogota, however, promptly hailed her arrest, vowing to seek her extradition from Venezuela to be tried for various crimes in her native Colombia.
The AUC claims it took up arms to fight leftist rebels that have waged a decades-long insurgency in Colombia, but it also stands accused of having executed thousands of civilians.
El Aissami said Moreno Vega was, along with a colleague, in charge of "relations between the AUC and Colombian security forces, that is, the DAS (the Colombian intelligence agency), army and police."
The minister called Moreno Vega a "confidante" of former Colombian attorney general Luis Camilo Osorio Isaza, the current ambassador to Mexico, and said the arrest was evidence of "aggression" against Venezuela.
Speaking on state television VTV, El Aissami accused Colombian President Alvaro Uribe of "institutional and moral decay" for his government's ties to paramilitary groups that "attack our people, and threaten peace and order."
The arrest comes amid rising tensions in the region, which surged when Venezuela's leftist President Hugo Chavez suspended diplomatic relations with Colombia, a key US ally in South America, on July 28.
Earlier this month, Chavez warned his nation to "prepare for war," while Colombia ratcheted up the unease on Friday when it warned that its forces were on "maximum alert" and prepared to defend against any attack.
Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa, a Chavez ally, commented that the crisis stemmed less from Chavez's war warning than from a recent US-Colombia agreement granting the US military access to seven Colombian bases.
Tensions also spiked Thursday when Venezuelan troops blew up two footbridges across the Venezuela-Colombia border.
Caracas said the bridges were destroyed because they were being used by drug traffickers and smugglers.
- AFP/yb
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