WORLD BRIEFING / COLOMBIA

The chief prosecutor’s office said it had unearthed the remains of 17 peasants who were tortured and killed at a ranch that belonged to the late militia leader Carlos Castano in Colombia’s northwest.

The peasants were believed slain 10 to 12 years ago by men under the command of Jesus Ignacio Roldan, alias Monoleche, a Castano lieutenant who later participated in the 2004 killing of the far-right militia leader, the prosecutor’s office said in a statement.

All the bodies found at the ranch -- known as La 35, in the Uraba banana-growing region -- had been “dismembered and showed signs of torture,” the statement said.

In the south, a rebel mass grave was found Thursday near La Uribe, a traditional stronghold of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, said the armed forces chief, Gen. Freddy Padilla. He said the FARC fighters were believed killed during fighting in July.