World Courant
Former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe has denounced the costs he’s going through as an act of political retaliation as he faces the prospect of a history-making felony case.
By no means earlier than has a Colombian president been tried on felony costs. However earlier this week, the workplace of Colombia’s lawyer basic, Luz Adriana Camargo Garzon, introduced that prosecutors would file a felony criticism for collaborating in witness falsification and fraud.
On Wednesday, Uribe responded with a video assertion broadcast on social media.
“The trial is being carried out for political persecution, for private condemnation, for political revenge, with out proof that I’ve tried to bribe witnesses or pervert justice,” Uribe, 71, mentioned.
He underlined that there is no such thing as a proof linking him to any wrongdoing, nor to any paramilitary teams embroiled in Colombia’s decades-long inside battle.
“They open the jail doorways with out proof,” Uribe added.
His political occasion, the right-wing Democratic Middle Group, additionally expressed assist for the previous president on social media.
The group mentioned it obtained information of the pending felony costs with “ache and unhappiness.”
“Like a big majority of Colombians who believed and supported Alvaro Uribe Velez, the Democratic Middle maintains its agency perception within the innocence and honorability of the previous president whose work and legacy in Colombia had been finished with infinite love and a deep dedication to the nation”, the Democratic Middle wrote in a message on Tuesday.
Former President Alvaro Uribe stays a preferred right-wing determine in Colombian politics (Luisa Gonzalez/Reuters)
To date, felony costs have but to be filed and no listening to has been scheduled.
However a conviction for witness tampering carries a jail sentence of as much as 12 years. Uribe may face a most of eight years on the cost of procedural fraud.
Uribe has lengthy been underneath scrutiny for alleged crimes dedicated underneath his two-term rule from 2002 to 2010.
Tuesday’s announcement largely stems from decade-old allegations that Uribe tried to silence witnesses linking him to the creation and actions of a right-wing paramilitary group.
In 2014, a left-wing senator named Ivan Cepeda raised considerations within the legislature that Uribe had ties to the United Self-Protection Forces of Colombia (AUC), a paramilitary group accused of human rights abuses and drug trafficking.
Colombia has been embroiled in a six-decade-long inside battle, with authorities forces, far-right paramilitaries, left-wing rebels and felony organizations all vying for energy and territory.
Throughout his tenure, Uribe cultivated a repute for taking a strong-armed method to left-wing insurgent teams, utilizing the army in opposition to organizations such because the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the Nationwide Liberation Military (ELN).
He was additionally thought of a detailed ally of the USA throughout the world “warfare on medicine.”
However Uribe’s ways raised considerations about human rights abuses. Beneath his rule, the army was accused of killing civilians in distant areas and mistaking them as enemy combatants, a collection of incidents referred to as the “false positives” scandal.
After leaving workplace, Uribe continued to exert important affect over Colombian politics, even main a marketing campaign in opposition to a 2016 peace cope with the FARC.
This week, his supporters took to social media to defend the favored former president with the hashtag #CreoEnUribe or “I imagine in Uribe.”
Senator Ivan Cepeda, middle, seems in Colombia’s Congress with a photograph of an activist killed within the nation’s ongoing armed battle (Nathalia Angarita/Reuters)
After Senator Cepeda raised questions on Uribe’s alleged ties to the AUC paramilitaries, prosecutors say the previous president tried to persuade witnesses to retract their statements.
A type of witnesses is predicted to be Juan Guillermo Montsalve, a former paramilitary member who claims Uribe helped develop the AUC.
Montsalve has beforehand accused Uribe of utilizing his lawyer, Diego Cadena, to supply him a bribe in alternate for retracting his testimony.
The announcement of pending felony costs comes shortly after Camargo Garzon was elected lawyer basic in March.
She was one in all three candidates that President Gustavo Petro submitted to the Supreme Court docket for a vote. Petro has been in energy since 2022 and is taken into account the primary leftist chief elected in Colombia.
The Supreme Court docket beforehand began the investigation into Uribe. Twice, prosecutors had tried to finish the investigation — and in each circumstances, judges had denied their requests.
Uribe was positioned underneath home arrest in 2020 because the investigation into witness tampering allegations unfolded.
Former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe denounces threatened felony costs | Crime information
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