BOGOTA -- Paramilitary forces threatened to shoot hundreds of peasants in northeastern Colombia, who they accused of supplying the police with information that led to the arrest of nine of their supporters, locals said Saturday.

A number of witnesses said they had been given until Sunday to leave the town of Las Mercedes, near the city of Quibdo or be shot.

A political spokesman confirmed that "a number" of peasants from the village had come to Quibdo on Saturday.

Last Wednesday police arrested nine paramilitary troopers, accusing them of being behind the November 18 murder of a priest and a Spanish development worker who were found drowned in the Atrato River.