Former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe has declared seven hours in court for fraud and bribery cases

The influential Colombian President Álvaro Uribe appeared in front of the highest court in his country on Tuesday to be questioned in a case witness manipulation.

Magistrate questioned Uribe in camera for seven hours on the charges that he tried to influence and even bribe the members of one paramilitary group that he had detrimental information from the exmandatario.

After the interrogation, the Colombian Supreme Court issued a brief statement in which it announced that the authorities had come to the conclusion that it was sufficient elements to pursue the investigation.

The cause stems from accusations made several years ago by Senator Iván Cepeda, who claimed that Uribe was the founder of a paramilitary block in his province during the decades-long civil war between government forces, left-wing guerrillas and right-wing paramilitaries.

In response, Uribe accused Cepeda of defamation, but the Supreme Court has filed the case and opened an investigation against him.

The former complainant rejected all charges of links with paramilitariesaccused of drug trafficking, assassination of innocent people and the displacement of thousands of people from their homes and land during conflicts with the rebels.

The cause rests largely on the statements of the exparamilitar Juan Guillermo Monsalve, who says that Uribe helped to form a branch of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC).

Monsalve says that a Uribe lawyer, Diego Cadena, has pressured him to retract this testimony. Another expert also stated that the lawyer paid to testify in favor of the former president.

The case divides the South American nation and has triggered demonstrations for and against of the former president. Political analysts see it as an important test for the Colombian justice system, which in its history has struggled to punish prominent political and military leaders.

The power of Uribe

Perhaps no political leader in the recent history of Colombia has exercised as much influence as Uribe, which still has a large legion of followers. He successfully led the campaign to reject a referendum on the peace process with guerrillas in 2016. Last year, his support was decisive for the victory of the presidential election of Iván Duque, a senator hitherto little known.

But accusations of links with the Drug cartels and paramilitaries they have followed Uribe since the 1980s, when the civil aviation agency he led was accused of granting pilot licenses to drug traffickers. A decade later, declassed US State Department cables show US officials that links with drug traffickers.

However, under his government, from 2002 to 2010, Uribe extradited to an unprecedented number of drug traffickers and aggressively expanded an American program to spray a herbicide into huge coca fields.

His appearance in court stemmed from charges brought by Cepeda in 2014 during a Congressional debate over Uribe's alleged paramilitary ties. Cepeda then claimed to have had the testimony of two ex-combatants confirming this association.