He could not have been very good at his job

Some news from Colombia. If Mr. Marti is really a psychic, he would have foretold of the political brouhaha his hiring would have caused.

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BOGOTA, Colombia · Colombia's chief prosecutor hired a psychic who hypnotized his staff and performed an exorcism over a voodoo doll in exchange for a government paycheck and use of an armored car.

The ensuing scandal has mesmerized the nation.

The federal prosecutor, Mario Iguaran, says he hired Armando Marti last year to help his stressed-out staff deal with a crushing caseload and to improve human relations.

Marti, a self-described clairvoyant, claims to have implicated corrupt workers in illegal wiretaps and bribery during the months he spent roaming the prosecutor's heavily fortified bunker, hypnotizing officials and writing up classified reports for Iguaran about staff loyalty.

He says workers confessed to deep secrets and ratted out colleagues as they stared into his eyes. The operation, according to leaked documents published by the newsweekly Semana, was code-named "Mission Perseus of Zeus."

The revelation that Marti was granted unfettered access has plunged into scandal one of Colombia's most respected institutions, an independent body responsible for investigating and prosecuting crimes in a nation torn by decades of conflict.

Colombians were scandalized by revelations that the federal prosecutor's office paid the psychic as much as $1,800 a month and authorized him to carry a pistol, an employee badge and to ride in a government-issued armored vehicle.

Marti said he became a confidante of Iguaran, one of the country's most trusted politicians, by helping him overcome marital problems.

On Monday, Iguaran delivered a televised apology to the nation for the "unfortunate incident that began as something folksily quaint but that has now ended up affecting the institutional well-being of the federal prosecutor's office."