Colombian ex-President Uribe charged in witness tampering case

Former Colombian President Álvaro Uribe was charged Friday in a long-running witness tampering investigation.

Uribe was formally charged with witness tampering and bribery for his efforts to discredit a political opponent who was digging into Uribe’s household ties to right-wing paramilitary teams. If convicted, Uribe faces as much as 12 years in jail.

The case dates again to 2012, when Uribe filed a grievance with the Supreme Court docket accusing a leftist lawmaker, Iván Cepeda, of slander. In 2018, the excessive court docket — the one authority allowed to research lawmakers — closed the investigation in opposition to Cepeda, and in a bombshell reversal, introduced it was opening a brand new probe into Uribe, who was then a senator for fraud and manipulating testimony.

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Uribe, who ruled Colombia with robust U.S. assist from 2002 to 2010, has denied any wrongdoing and has accused Colombia’s chief prosecutor’s workplace of “political vengeance.”

There are wiretapped cellphone conversations by which the previous president could be heard discussing with certainly one of his attorneys efforts to flip two former paramilitary fighters who have been set to testify in opposition to him. Uribe stated his conversations have been intercepted illegally.

The long-running authorized battle is going down in opposition to a polarized political backdrop within the South American nation that has been made extra intense by the 2022 election of one other Uribe critic, President Gustavo Petro, a former leftist insurgent himself.

No political chief in Colombia’s current historical past has wielded as a lot affect as Uribe, who nonetheless has legions of followers. He led the “no” marketing campaign that efficiently voted in opposition to a peace accord with leftist rebels in 2016, although the federal government later adopted a barely revised model.

Allegations of ties to drug cartels and paramilitaries have dogged him for the reason that early Eighties, when the civil aviation company he then led was accused of giving air licenses to drug traffickers. Declassified State Division cables from a decade later present U.S. officers have been informed the up-and-coming politician had ties to cartels.

The media consideration and powerful feelings surrounding the case have difficult the work of Colombia’s justice system, which all through its historical past has struggled to carry outstanding political and army leaders accountable.

Earlier than Petro took workplace, Colombian prosecutors tried twice to shut the witness-tempering case after saying they’d failed to search out proof of Uribe’s prison duty. Nonetheless, these requests have been rejected by judges, and in April, after Petro appointed a brand new legal professional basic, prosecutors modified course and stated they might take the case to trial.

Friday’s listening to was held via video convention and Uribe had a restricted position, leaving a lot of the speaking to his lawyer.

The chief prosecutor, Gilberto Ivan Villareal, stated the previous president “abused his distinguished place in society” to flip witnesses and get them to talk out in opposition to Cepeda.

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Uribe was briefly held beneath pre-trial home arrest in 2020 through the coronavirus pandemic beneath orders from the Supreme Court docket. However he was freed shortly after resigning his senate seat. The transfer prompted the justice system to switch the case from the excessive court docket to prosecutors.