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GUATEMALA CITY, Jan 2 (Reuters) - Guatemala's Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday that a politician accused of drug links can be put on trial for involvement in the murder last year of three Salvadoran deputies from a Central American parliament.

A government prosecutor said Manuel Castillo had several telephone conversations with a man suspected of planning last year's murder of the three Salvadoran members of the regional parliament.

Castillo, an independent member of Congress, is set to take office as the mayor of Jutiapa, a town in a region police say is dominated by drug smugglers.

The Supreme Court's decision strips him of the immunity he would have enjoyed as mayor. The court had already removed the legal protection given to congressmen.

"There is nothing stopping the police from asking for an arrest warrant," Supreme Court spokesman Willy Melgar told local radio.

The charred bodies of the representatives to the Central American parliament were found riddled with bullets on a back road in February.

Four policemen traced to the crime scene by a global positioning device in their car were arrested but then killed days later in prison before they could testify.

Authorities say drug gangs with links to Guatemala and El Salvador were behind the killings, which have shed light on illegal armed groups within Guatemala's security forces and possible links between high-level officials and narcotics traffickers. Prosecutors say they know who masterminded the murder and that that person was in contact with Castillo.

Local media have accused Castillo of maintaining links to drug dealers and of employing former hitmen as bodyguards. (Reporting by Herbert Hernandez, writing by Noel Randewich, editing by Todd Eastham)

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