Colombian Senator Dilia Francisca Toro, a former Congressional speaker, has been arrested over alleged links to a money
laundering scandal.
Toro was taken to the prosecuting agency's headquarters, in Bogota on Tuesday, following orders for her detention by the country's supreme court, according to a spokesman for the prosecution.
Toro is accused of knowingly being involved in the purchase of a property linked to drug traffickers, a court spokesman said earlier.
The La Milagrosa estate was purchased by a company Toro has ties to, the Agropecuaria Ceiba Verde Ltda., in December 2005, despite the fact that it was "associated with the organisations ... of Phanor Arizabaleta Arzayus and Luis Alfonso Patino Fomeque," two former drug trafficking chiefs.
The property is in the southwest Valle province, where Toro is from.
A member of the ruling right-leaning National Unity Party, as well as a medical doctor, Toro led Colombia's congress under then-president Alvaro Uribe.
She is also is facing another supreme court investigation for alleged links to far-right paramilitaries, in the so-called "Parapolitics" affair.
At least 100 Colombian political leaders, including five former Senate speakers, have been put in jail for links to this militia, which battled against leftist guerrillas during the Uribe presidency.
News home