Minister Quits As Brother Arrested

Colombia's foreign minister resigned yesterday, four days after her senator brother was jailed as part of a widening scandal that revealed collusion between rightwing militia groups and high profile politicians.

María Consuelo Araújo bowed to mounting pressure to leave her post after her brother, Senator Alvaro Araújo, was arrested on charges of colluding with outlaw paramilitary groups and the kidnapping of a potential political rival. Prosecutors were also asked to investigate Ms Araújo's father, a former provincial governor, federal lawmaker and agriculture minister, in the kidnapping case.

"I clearly see the need for the judicial process to be free of interference, and my certainty in the innocence of my father and my brother obliges me to have the freedom to stand by them and support them," Ms Araújo said. She is the first cabinet-level victim of the so-called para-politics scandal that has seen the arrest of eight lawmakers allied to President Alvaro Uribe. She personally is not under suspicion for any crime. A day after her brother's arrest she had insisted that she would remain in her post.