The army’s 4th Brigade, based in Medellin, and the Attorney General’s Office said Henry Lopez Sarmiento was picked up Monday.

Lopez Sarmiento “was visiting his family in Medellin and was taking advantage of the New Year’s festivities to coordinate the carrying out of a kidnapping for ransom, when he was surprised,” the 4th Brigade said in a statement

News of the arrest followed the appearance of a communique from the FARC accepting responsibility for the death Cuellar, who was found decapitated late last month a day after armed assailants abducted him from his residence.

The Southern Bloc of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, took responsibility for the governor’s death in a communique dated Dec. 24 and posted Tuesday on the Web site of Anncol, a Swedish-based radical news agency.

The rebels said Cuellar was kidnapped so that he could be placed on “political trial” for corruption.

“The aim of the abduction was not to execute him, or to make economic demands of him, but to subject him to a political trial for corruption, for having made fraud and corruption the cornerstone of his administration,” the communique said.

The rebel group added that the governor’s acts of corruption even extended to extorting monthly kickbacks from employees of the provincial government.

The FARC said that Cuellar’s fate “is a direct consequence of the order issued by (President) Alvaro Uribe to the military.”

Uribe said Wednesday that the FARC is a “thuggish and lying” group that is trying to justify the murder of Cuellar with written communiques from Europe.

The president said in an interview with Radio Viva that the FARC is cynical because they spill blood and then write “pompous communiques” with which they seek to justify their killing of the governor.

“It doesn’t surprise us, they have always lied. This group is thuggish and lying,” Uribe said.

The statement from the rebels’ Southern Bloc also confirmed “the invariable determination” of the FARC leadership to unilaterally release Sgt. Pablo Emilio Moncayo, whom they took captive in December 1997, when the guerrillas attacked a communications center in the southwestern part of the country.

Opposition Sen. Piedad Cordoba, who has been working for the release of Moncayo and another of the FARC’s prisoners, announced that – despite the optimism of the Catholic Church that he would be freed quickly – the release would only occur toward the end of January.

Last April, the FARC announced its readiness to free Moncayo and shortly thereafter the rebel group also offered to release Pvt. Josue Daniel Calvo and turn over the remains of Capt. Julian Guevara, who died in FARC custody in 2006 after being held for eight years.

Uribe agreed to facilitate the releases of Moncayo and Calvo “out of consideration” for the captives’ families, but he has insisted that the insurgents must commit themselves to turn over all 24 of the soldiers and policemen they are holding captive.