THE brother of former Colombian president Alvaro Uribe has been arrested for murder and conspiring with death squads.

Santiago Uribe was arrested in the city of Medellin over allegations that he founded the so-called 12 Apostles paramilitary unit in the early 1990s.

The death squad is believed to have plotted dozens of assassinations, with the collusion of local police, from the Uribe family’s La Carolina cattle ranch in the northern state of Antioquia.

Many of the allegations are based on the testimony of Yarumal district police chief Juan Carlos Meneses, who returned from hiding in neighbouring Venezuela in 2014.

Mr Meneses recalled last year that when he took up his post in 1994 there was already a group engaged in “social cleansing” with the support of state and national authorities. He said that the 12 Apostles not only targeted suspected Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) guerillas and sympathisers but also common criminals and drug addicts.

He told of witnessing 15 members of the death squad, armed with assault rifles, training on an obstacle course at La Carolina.

Mr Meneses said he also acted as a bagman for covert payments to the unit and took bribes to look the other way as they went about their bloody business.

“When that group goes to do a job, you have to collaborate with them,” he said.

Alvaro Uribe’s 2002-2010 presidency was marked by paramilitary massacres of peasants and assassinations of trade unionists and rights campaigners, carried out in a climate of impunity.

His reign of terror was funded by Washington via its Plan Colombia, which saw Bogota receive more US military aid than the rest of Latin America combined, in the name of combating the drug trade.

Hasan Dodwell, spokesman for British-based campaign Justice for Colombia, said the arrest “shines the spotlight once again on the relationship between Uribe and the Colombian paramilitaries.

“His closest political allies, his cousin and now his brother have all been arrested for their paramilitary ties,” he added.

“If peace is to become a reality in Colombia, it is essential not only that the paramilitary networks are fully dismantled but that there is also complete transparency as to how so much paramilitary violence was allowed to occur.”