Public Security Minister Fernando Berrocal agreed to step down from his post by midnight yesterday amid controversy he sparked by saying certain Costa Rican politicians may be linked to the Armed Revolutionary Forces of Colombia (FARC).

Berrocal outraged members of the government with a March 15 speech in which he suggested a tip-of-the-iceberg scenario after police raided a couple's home in Heredia, north of San José, and found an estimated $480,000 in alleged FARC money locked in a safe. Authorities are expected to begin counting the highly brittle bills today.

Police were tipped off to the stash by information gathered from computers seized in Colombia 's March 1 attack on Ecuadorean territory that killed FARC's No. 2 in command, Raúl Reyes.

Berrocal alluded to information in those laptops that he presumed would show a lot more of Costa Rica 's FARC connections.

“The relations don't only go with the mafia organized to run drugs,” Berrocal said, “but with some political sectors of this country that have lost a sense of reality.”

Legislators, the country's chief prosecutor and its president urged Berrocal publicly to release a list of politicians tied to FARC, if such a list existed.

Berrocal days later attempted to clarify his statement, claiming such a list does not exist and that he never said it did. However, he maintained that FARC has infiltrated this country on a large scale.

“After a serious process of reflection,” reads a statement that emerged yesterday from President Oscar Arias' Casa Presidencial, “it was agreed that, to protect the interests of the country, Berrocal Soto will serve as (security) minister until the current Sunday, March 30.”

At the time of writing this report it was unclear whether the security minister would stand before the Legislative Assembly today as requested to divulge information on FARC in Costa Rica.

For his part, Berrocal said he is leaving the post “with a clean conscience” after reaching a mutual agreement with the government.

“We agree that it is bad … for this subject to become politicized,” said Berrocal.

“The president neither asked for my resignation nor did I resign. We've reached the conclusion that this is what's best for the country.”