By Hugh Bronstein

BOGOTA, Nov 13 (Reuters) - A member of Colombia's deadliest rebel group infiltrated a top military academy, allowing her to take classes alongside future generals and detonate a bomb at the school in 2006, the government said on Tuesday.

The case of Marilu Ramirez, the latest in a series of spy scandals, had the military scrambling to determine if the alluring, black-haired agent passed army secrets to her Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) commanders.

Ramirez, who posed as a public relations specialist, was jailed last month after networking her way into the highest echelons of the military through a program allowing professionals to attend Bogota's Superior War College.

The Andean country is in the grip of a four-decade guerrilla war. Still, after a drop in urban violence over recent years, Colombians were shocked by the car bomb that exploded in college parking lot last year.

"We just jailed a woman from the FARC who had infiltrated our public forces," conservative President Alvaro Uribe said in a speech on Tuesday. "The terrorists have had that audacity, but sooner or later justice is imposed."

The government admitted in July that spies placed by the cocaine-financed FARC and other drug organizations have tipped off wanted outlaws about plans to arrest them.

Meanwhile, Uribe's former security chief is being investigated along with dozens of members of Congress, including the president's ex-senator cousin Mario Uribe, accused of illegal dealings with far-right death squads.

Last year, Colombian soldiers paid by drug traffickers killed 10 anti-narcotics police near the western town of Jamundi, prosecutors charge.

Colombia is the world's biggest cocaine exporter despite billions of dollars in U.S. aid, mostly military, aimed at stamping out the trade.

Many Colombians see Uribe as a hero for attacking the FARC and attracting foreign investment that has led to an economic boom. He won re-election last year and has kept his popularity despite the scandals. (Reporting by Hugh Bronstein; Editing by Alan Elsner)

AlertNet news is provided by