2024-05-27 12:02:10
The Colombian Prosecutor’s Workplace formally accused the previous Colombian President Alvaro Uribe of fraud and manipulation of witnesses within the nation’s first prison trial towards a former head of state, reported France Press.
Alvaro Uribe is suspected of “providing money and different advantages to some witnesses of prison acts to cover the reality” in a case linking him to paramilitary teams, in accordance with the indictment offered by prosecutor Hilberto Villarreal, BTA reported.
In the course of the retrial, which started on Might 18, the previous president, who attended through video hyperlink, pleaded not responsible and known as for the costs to be dropped.
“I by no means took the initiative to search for witnesses. I used to be making an attempt to guard my popularity,” Uribe mentioned.
Choose Sandra Heredia rejected his request and acknowledged as potential victims a senator, the ex-wife of a member of a paramilitary group who helped join Uribe to these armed teams, and two former prosecutors.
Thought-about certainly one of Colombia’s strongest politicians, Uribe, 71, mentioned he was “shocked” by the truth that he was the primary ex-president to defend himself in court docket. Accused of ties to drug trafficking and paramilitary teams, he has run afoul of the Colombian justice system, AFP notes. In 2012, he filed a criticism towards left-wing senator Ivan Cepeda, accusing him of making an attempt to acquire false testimony linking Uribe to the paramilitaries that fought left-wing guerrillas between the Nineties and early 2000s. Nevertheless, Colombia’s Supreme Courtroom shunned prosecuting Cepeda and as an alternative opened an investigation towards Uribe himself. The judges concluded that he himself had tried to control witnesses to discredit his opponent. He faces a sentence of 6 to 12 years in jail.
His protection mentioned the previous senator was merely contacting witnesses to get them to inform the reality as a part of an investigation into his potential hyperlinks to paramilitary teams – a cost he has at all times denied.