GUATEMALA CITY, July 23 (Reuters) - A former Guatemalan policeman suspected of involvement in the murder of three Salvadoran politicians and their driver was arrested in a jungle area near the Mexican border, officials said on Monday.

Carlos Orellana, 38, was captured in an undercover operation in the Peten region and flown to Guatemala City under heavy security, police spokesman Carlos Calju said.

The bodies of the three representatives to the Central American Parliament, all members of El Salvador's ruling ARENA party, were found charred and 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 their maximum-security prison cell 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.

"We had been tracking Orellana for several weeks, since neighbors recognized him as the wanted policeman," said Calju. "The prison authorities should give him special protection in jail."

The interior minister, the chief of police and the head of prisons were all forced to resign as a result of the violent, election-year scandal. (Additional reporting by Herbert Hernandez)

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