Former Colombian legislator Mario Uribe asked Costa Rica for political asylum after a prosecutor ordered his arrest for alleged ties to paramilitary groups – but he was denied yesterday afternoon.

Uribe, cousin and adviser to President Alvaro Uribe, went to the Costa Rican Embassy in Bogotá yesterday on the grounds that he lacks proper procedural guarantees in Colombia, according to the nation's daily El Tiempo. The ex-lawmaker has repeatedly denied ties to paramilitary death squads.

The embassy refused his request. “The (Costa Rican) Foreign Ministry, with knowledge of the facts in the case made known, in particular, by the Prosecutor's Office of Colombia, in compliance with rules and regulations of the right to asylum … considers this request inadmissible,” a ministry press release said yesterday.

The chief prosecutor said he issued the arrest warrant because of at least two meetings Mario Uribe held with then paramilitary chiefs from 1998-2002, according to The Associated Press.

The chiefs said Mario Uribe had asked them to back his Senate campaign and help him acquire cheap farmland, Reuters reported.

More than 30 Colombian lawmakers are under investigation for alleged links to paramilitary groups.

Human Rights Watch, a non-governmental organization, said in a press release the groups Mario Uribe is allegedly linked to are “drug-running paramilitary death squads that are responsible for some of the most horrific atrocities in Colombian history.”

The NGO urged Costa Rica to turn Mario Uribe over. “It's utterly absurd for Mario Uribe, one of Colombia's most powerful politicians, to claim he is somehow a victim who needs asylum,” said José Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch, according to the press release. “On the contrary, Colombia's judicial authorities deserve international support in investigating paramilitaries' infiltration of the political system.”

Vivanco continued, “Costa Rica shouldn't let itself become a tool to further impunity in Colombia by allowing him to evade justice.”