Uribe on the bench of the accused | The former president …

Former Colombian President Álvaro Uribe today declared before the Supreme Court the unprecedented judicial process in the history of his country. In an unexpected turn of justice, Uribe went from accuser to accused. He had initiated proceedings against Iván Cepeda, a left-wing politician accused of manipulating witnesses, against him. But the Court did not engage in this direction and instead accused Uribe of these accusations. This is the first time that a former Colombian president answers before the Supreme Court.

The courthouse of Bogotá is awake surrounded by a powerful police operation. Until then, former Colombian President Álvaro Uribe (2002-2010) was addressed by both ad groups and contrary to his figure. The Supreme Court expected him to testify in the cases where he was a complainant yesterday. In 2012, Uribe filed a complaint against the left-wing senator Iván Cepeda. The former president and senator since 2014 claims that Cepeda – one of his biggest political opponents – has contacted former paramilitary prisoners to involve him in the criminal activities of drug groups. extreme right who fought blood and fire guerrillas left. But the Supreme Court refrained from prosecuting Cepeda and instead decided to open the investigation against the former president this year with the same suspicion: to manipulate the witnesses against his opponent and to try to modify the declarations that commit him. with the paramilitaries.

Thus, two investigations were opened against the former president of Colombia. One for pressuring the former paramilitaries to speak against Cepeda. Another to put pressure on former paramilitary Juan Guillermo Monsalve. According to some witnesses, Uribe and his brother Santiago helped to found the subway block of the paramilitary United Self-Defense of Colombia (AUC) in the 1990s. Monsalve was part of this armed group. The former paramilitary group assured Cepeda that in the "Guacharacas", a farm belonging to the Uribe family in the department of Antioquia, in northwestern Colombia, massacres were planned and then committed by these squadrons. Declarations that were refused by the former president.

Later, Monsalve wrote in prison a letter that he had sent to the Supreme Court of Justice in which he retracted. But in the end, he noticed that he was "under pressure". It is suspected that this letter is the result of pressure exerted by criminal lawyer Diego Cadena, known for defending drug traffickers. He also reportedly visited prisons to convince former paramilitary prisoners to testify in favor of Uribe. According to the record, Uribe allegedly attempted to influence Monsalve's testimony in order to remove the charges in which he would be related to the birth of the AUC.

Uribe has more than fifty open procedures for various crimes, mainly alleged links with paramilitaries and the complicity of massacres. Fourteen of them are in the hands of the Supreme Court. He is the leader of the Democratic Party Center, which brought the current president of Colombia, Iván Duque, to power. He is currently serving as a senator, which he won in the 2014 elections, and is leading the campaign alongside his election candidates on October 27, where mayors and governors will be elected.