Colombia ? President Alvaro Uribe’s former spy chief was freed from jail Friday after a judge ruled his imprisonment for alleged links to far-right militias was illegal, the latest twist in a scandal battering Colombia’s conservative government.

Jorge Noguera, the former head of the Department of Administrative Security, or DAS, was arrested Feb. 22 for conspiring with the paramilitary groups, which are blamed for some of Colombia’s worst massacres in their battles against leftist guerrillas and suspected sympathizers.

His arrest was a major embarrassment to the U.S.-backed Uribe government, which is struggling to defend itself against accusations that it turned a blind eye to paramilitary infiltration of government institutions.

Noguera is alleged to have given the far-right paramilitaries a hit list of human rights workers and trade union activists while he was in charge of domestic security. A number of those named in the list were later killed. Noguera denies the allegations.

On Friday, appellate Judge Leonor Perdomo of the Superior Judicial Council overturned a lower court decision denying Noguera’s release, saying in a statement the ex-spy chief was “illegally and unconstitutionally being deprived of his freedom.”